Family Portrait 2
by TwistedRedfieldSisters
Summary: Time passes, damage is done, but some feelings remain until they break your soul. Some people are meant to bond over catastrophes and common mistakes. Part two of a trilogy about love, incest, and the dance with the forbidden. Some needed Cleon in this part!
1. Trial and Error

**Hello! This is the second part of Family Portrait. If you haven't read part one, you'll be amazingly lost. If you're just here because it's tagged Cleon, you might actually like this part and if you send us a PM we can give you a nice summary of part one, but expect a lot of Wesker-Claire content and incestuous thoughts from Claire towards Chris. If you're only here because of the real Redfield-Incest (what we call _Incestfield_)... hehehe... check again when part 3 comes out.**

**But it would be such a shame if you didn't know how we get there...**

**If you're here because you read and enjoyed part 1 and you want to know how it continues, you're in the right place :D**

**Thanks a bunch for reading!**

* * *

**Trial and error**

The security procedures they had her endure every single time she came around were exhausting. X Ray scans, drug tests, interviews, and forms to fill out were regularly stealing more and more of Claire's time, but when you wanted to access a zone overseen by the National Security Advisor himself there was no such thing as _too safe_. It was even harder when you were carrying a gift package, as the officers doubled their measures when you meant to leave any external objects in their facilities, and Claire somehow suspected that Derek Simmons was testing all new screenings and protocols on her. The last metal door was solemnly pushed open and Claire could finally enter the tiny interrogation room where Sherry was already waiting for her.

"Claire," the girl exclaimed excitedly, without moving from her seat. "I almost thought you weren't actually coming today."

Claire took a seat in front of her blonde friend and smiled comfortingly as she pulled out the package.

"I had to go through extra security because of this," she explained with a laugh and handed Sherry the gift box with the big pink ribbon tied around it. "Happy Birthday! I'm sorry I couldn't be here on Wednesday."

The young woman shook her head eagerly and began to pull on the strip to undo the delicately tied knot.

"It's okay, I know you are busy," she said as her slim fingers worked the box open. "Oh my god! Claire, this is so cute!"

The colorful stuffed parrot with widely spread wings seemed to expect her to give him a hug and Sherry's eyes filled with sparkling joy as she ran her fingertips along the feathers.

"You finally got me a parrot," she squealed, with tears in her eyes. "Thank you so much!"

Claire giggled sadly.

"It's from Leon and me," she said, propping up her chin on the back of her right hand as she watched Sherry caress softly over the wings. "Now the puppy we got you two years ago won't feel lonely anymore."

"It's never lonely. It has me," the blonde replied enthusiastically and broke Claire's heart. "Say thanks to Leon from me. I love it so much!"

The mood sank drastically at the mention of their common friend and government agent, and Claire knew that they were about to repeat an inexhaustible issue that always stood between them like a wall.

"How is he doing?"

Claire's hand reached for Sherry's and held it in a comforting grip. It was a common ritual of their every meeting, and one of the sadder moments they shared. Whenever their common friend Leon was brought up, Claire would automatically try her best to comfort the girl in her everlasting sorrow.

"He's alright, Sherry. Don't worry." Her voice was loaded with warmth and care. Sherry had always been their little girl, Leon's and her common life project, as he'd once dared call her when he'd had the dreadful idea to get wasted in some bar. "He's with USSTRATCOM. That's a very important job and he couldn't be happier."

That was a lie, of course. After surviving Raccoon City, Leon had been forced to take the job for the government in exchange for Sherry's safety, but they hadn't let him see the girl since then. Although saddened about the situation, and not entirely happy with the job he had been given, he knew through Claire's regular updates that the girl was safe, and it was all he asked for.

As for Claire, she had made Sherry's wellbeing her personal life goal even before graduating from college. It had taken her more than a couple of nice application letters and a hundred phone calls to persuade Simmons of the importance of social contact and friends for a young woman and to let Claire visit her every now and then. Over the years, every now and then had become every Saturday, plus holidays and...

"You know, Sherry, there's a reason why I couldn't be here for your b-day."

Two enormous blue eyes shot up and glanced curiously at her.

"What reason?" A hint of fear lay in her tiny voice when she asked, fearing that something terrible had happened to her friend.

Claire lifted her hands as a sign for Sherry to relax as she said, "It's okay. It's all good. I just started a new job."

And the light returned to the blonde's face as her pinkish lips widened into a bright smile.

"Oh, Claire, that's fantastic," she yelled happily. "I would hug you if those suckers let me!"

Claire, wondering if it was her own vocabulary that had fucked the girl up that much, launched a chiding expression at her friend. Fingers crossed upon the table, she sighed.

"It's in New York City!" she continued and saw grief blossom on Sherry's face again. "But don't worry. I will still be coming every Saturday, okay?"

"But New York is so far away…"

Claire laughed, with a shrug of her shoulders.

"It's just a two-hour flight from here. I can manage that once a week."

Sherry seemed reluctant to believe her friend would come every Saturday, and Claire knew that she changed the subject only to avoid being given a promise the redhead wouldn't be able to keep.

"So, are you starting a job in your brother's organization?" she asked quickly. "What was it called again?"

"Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance!" Claire said in a soft shout before she muttered, "Which sounds better than _B.O.W. Busters_, how I had expected him to name it."

They laughed until they ran out of breath and Claire wiped off a tear on her sleeve.

"No, he still doesn't let me participate." Claire huffed out a sad laugh. The thought of the counterterrorism club Chris, Jill and some other dudes had put up together still hurt her deeply, as it had been the issue the Redfield siblings had disputed the most loudly in their whole life. Chris had won the argument every single time his sister had brought up the subject, silencing her with a plain_ 'I said no, Claire'_ whenever their fight was dragged out too long. Luckily, Claire had found a way to join their fight without actually standing close to the dangerous front line.

"It's an NGO called Terra Save," she explained proudly. "They started out being just a bunch of hippies who wanted to make a change, but they're growing quickly. Last week they dismantled a tiny lab that was producing bioweapons and they want to set up active help in danger zones."

Which was enough reason for Chris to oppose her new job plans—unsuccessfully, this time, as Claire had already made a choice and there was no one in Terra Save who wasn't absolutely excited to have her with them. Sherry listened to her with interest, as Claire's stories were the only contact with the outside of her cell in the lab.

"That's cool, Claire," she commented. "I'm sure you're gonna be of use to them!"

_Sherry was taken care of, but the government facilities were far from being a home for a young girl. However, Simmons treated her right, which was rather unexpected because that guy is a total creep. He was always acting like he was doing us a favor, when it was Sherry who was doing a favor to the government. I thought she was fine there. She never mentioned anything regarding the experiments and I never saw the wounds that would have unveiled their dark plans, but, of course, I didn't know back then what terrific superpowers her G infection had given her. I heard Rebecca was brought to join the team of researchers at some point, so I really believed Sherry was in good hands. _

_I know we all hoped they would give her some more freedom after her eighteenth birthday. She was a grownup now and she legally didn't need a guardian anymore, but Wesker still being alive was always the perfect excuse for them to keep her captive, as for her own safety._

_I guess some things will change, now that they don't have an excuse anymore._

"I will do my best."

* * *

Adam had texted her before she'd gotten onto the plane, and when she landed in New York he was awaiting her with widely-spread arms. Claire truly liked Adam Walsh. He was young and funny, smart and handsome. Recently incorporated to the Accounting Department, he had been on the same guided tour through the Terra Save headquarters Claire had attended, and they'd gotten along awesomely since their first greeting.

It was a shame that he was so lousy in bed.

"Do you like this?" he asked a little breathlessly as he rocked his hips forth.

Claire nodded, forcing out a soft moan through widened lips. Someone among the secretaries had mentioned how _huge _he was long before she had gotten the chance to taste him—and the rumors had resulted to be truthful. She just wished he knew what to do with that immense tool he had been gifted with.

Letting no one less than Albert Wesker become her first one had turned out to be more of a burden than she had expected in the first place, as nobody had ever been comparable to the forbidden pleasure the evil Captain had given her. Though resulting torturous and embarrassing at first, the lessons the blond had taught her secretly had turned out to be the most pleasing experience she'd ever been lucky to have, and every time she had dug for satisfaction between the sheets of someone else, she had only found frustration. Admittedly, she had been digging only a couple of times in six years. Maybe she'd just had back luck.

Adam leaned down and kissed her softly on the mouth as his right hand pushed under her knee and lifted her leg. The new angle felt a little better than before, it stung deeper and even hurt a bit—in a pleasant way—but it was far from making her enjoy the act. It wasn't about angles or depth. It was about how their energies and _chakras _didn't quite combine, and because Adam was trying to make love to her when she didn't want him to _love _her. She wanted him to fuck her mindless, to use and waste her and never even mention something related to _feelings_.

"Oh, yes," she began to squeal as the young man drove into her once more.

It was best for both of them if they didn't prolong this unnecessarily, and Claire liked Adam enough to spare his feelings from the hurtful truth. Reaching for the headboard, she curled her fingers around the metal bars and arched her back, forcing out his name with the voice of someone who was actually having an orgasm. When she opened her eyes again and caught sight of the proud smile on the man's face, she knew she had made the right choice. Now everything she had to do was to tell him delicately that there would be no next time.

Sincerity was the base of every relationship.

* * *

The complete apartment was filled with thick smoke when she returned home that night, causing her to cough loudly as soon as she opened the door.

"Chris!" she called into the corridor.

The mess had its origin in the kitchen, as she had expected. She found Chris heavily coughing in front of the stove, holding a frying pan with little pieces of coal that looked like they had once been living. Claire quickly ran to open all the windows on the floor and came back laughing into the kitchen.

"This is not how you smoke meat," she said and took the pan from his hands. It seemed to be the only object that had taken major damage through Chris' cooking attempts, although it would take her some time to free the textiles of the place from the stench. Chris somehow looked like a drenched puppy when he stared at their burnt dinner.

"I got a call," he muttered frustratedly and turned to face her. "I'm sorry."

Claire lovingly thumbed over his cheek before placing a kiss onto it. Two nights of mutual silence followed by a burnt piece of meat and forgotten was the last fight they'd had about her new job at Terra Save.

They ordered pizza, sat on the couch covered with blankets to protect themselves from the cold breeze that blew through the open windows and watched a horrible action movie in which Steven Seagal or one of his kind began to punch everyone around him.

"I could do better!" Chris yelled at the screen in excitement. "They should hire _me _for their lame action scenes and I would make it look so much cooler."

Claire was currently chewing on her pizza slice when her brother nearly caused her to cough up.

"He's punching a fucking boulder Chris! Is there any way this would _not_ look simply ridiculous?"

"I swear I could make it look better than he does!"

Chris seemed to have a great time and Claire wondered when she had last seen her brother that jaunty. After getting back from Canada with his sister, Jill and Rebecca, Chris had been working nonstop, travelling and continuing his research on Umbrella, but it wasn't until he had met a guy named O'Brian that he actually achieved something with his doing. Clive O'Brian had contacts all over the world and, having lost dear people to bioterrorism, he was excited to help Chris and Jill with the founding of the B.S.A.A.

But that was just the beginning of their struggles. Although O'Brian and his friends had helped with funding and well-developed organizational ideas, it was still hard for a couple of _ex-cops who had casually survived an outbreak or two_ to be heard by governments and bigger companies and Chris and Jill had to use all their dialectical talents to persuade different decision-makers. In Chris' case, the lack of such dialectical talent had historically been recouped by brute force, and the fact that he couldn't just freely punch everyone's face had frustrated him.

Chris' phone rang for the third time that evening and, as the previous times, he cut the call without taking it. This time, though, Claire could catch a glimpse at the name of the caller.

"Who is Richardson?" she asked curiously and saw Chris slide his tongue over his upper teeth.

"An idiot. No one you have to worry about," he replied and grabbed another slice of pizza, hurrying so as not to lose half of the cheese that threatened with sliding off the dough. "He's a journalist who once worked for the Raccoon Times."

Claire listened carefully to her brother's tale.

"What does he want?" she asked, her look stern on her brother's face.

Chris grunted, shrugging his shoulders as an irritated frown covered his face.

"A story, I assume," he said and leaned back into the couch. "He was one of the first people I told about the Arklay Mountains when we survived the mansion in 1998. He didn't want to know anything about it. I should have contacted Ben Bertolucci back then. Maybe we could have actually achieved something to save the city."

Claire blinked curiously. She had heard stories about the brave Ben Bertolucci who had been put into a cell in the basement of the Police Station by no one less than Brian Irons, being killed by trenchcoat guy or by William Birkin—depending on how drunk Leon was when he told the story.

Chris sighed.

"Richardson was just a lazy ass who didn't want to take too many risks. He was lucky to be on vacation when the outbreak took place, so I contacted him again when we came back from Antarctica, because he could have been really helpful in our task to bring down Umbrella."

Chris finished his slice of pizza in silence and leaned forward to grab a cigarette.

"He never wanted to know anything about me," he explained, exhaling the smoke. "But now that Umbrella is no more, he wants to collaborate. What a surprise! He's now a self-proclaimed _expert _in bioterror."

_Oh, right, I forgot to mention. By then, Umbrella had been taken down already, but other corporations and terror groups had been quick to replace the pharmaceutical company on the frontline of bioterror._

Claire frowned at his comment. Richardson seemed to be one of those parasites who stained the already poor image of the journalists with a degrading attitude and disinterest. Poor Chris. He had struggled so hard with all this shit. Claire wrung her hand into his palm and leaned into him, gladly inhaling the smoke her brother blew out.

"What are you gonna do? Will you ignore him forever?"

Chris huffed.

"I'll let Jill handle him," he said and took another drag. "She looks so much harder than me, but when he gets too noisy, she'll be less likely to punch his face."

Claire sighed. After all he had been through, Chris deserved to punch someone's face someday. Her head dropped against his shoulder, comforting him before bringing up a subject she knew would inevitably hurt him.

"How is Jill doing?"

Chris blew out a laugh along with the smoke of his last drag and tossed the cigarette into the ashtray.

"She's okay," he said as he leaned back again and laid his arm around his sister. "We have been working a lot lately and it's tiring."

Claire blinked, softly nuzzling his shoulder. She knew that Chris and Jill had been trying to establish some sort of relationship over the years, failing miserably and wearing out their _friendship _more and more. Seeing how easily Jill found distraction elsewhere, Chris had pretended he could do the same, and he had substituted her with females as arousing as Violet, Emily and Sandra, but neither of them had ever become more than just a temporary issue and if Claire ever asked about them Chris had already lost track of them.

"Are you still seeing Monica?"

"No."

Claire smirked, as she knew how her dear brother was currently feeling like. To Chris Redfield, there would never be anyone else but Jill Valentine, and nobody could ever compare to the brunette that had stolen his soul and wouldn't give it back. She herself had felt the same way for the longest of times—about _him_.

"Thanks for taking me in," Claire whispered and rubbed her cheek against his shoulder, giving Chris the chance to kiss her hair lovingly. There had been a time when being that close to him would have caused horrible thoughts to come to her, thoughts full of lust, desire, and other things that a woman should never feel towards her brother, and it had made her commit horrible mistakes in the past. Luckily, the years they had spent away from each other had helped her overcome that desire and understand that she'd just been dealing with the trauma of losing their parents.

"Please, I can't let my baby sister sleep in a shady hotel while she's looking for an apartment," he mumbled as his fingers softly caressed her upper arm. "I'm sorry for everything I said about your new job. I know it's hard to stand back when you see so much shit going on. And I'm proud of you, Claire."

Those words warmed her heart. She had never needed Chris to say out loud how proud he was of his little sister, but it still felt good to hear it.

"Thanks, Chris. I'm proud of you too."

He nodded, smiling widely.

"And I'm happy you're here," he mouthed against her hair and made her giggle. Yes, she was happy, too.

It was the first time they lived together since their time before Raccoon City. She had stayed at his place for one might, maybe two in the past, but he had always been working when she'd come for a visit. That night was the first one they could actually spend some quality time together.

"How is the search going, by the way?"

Claire chuckled sadly. Of course, the fact that he had offered her his bed while he crashed on the couch wasn't a condition to stand indefinitely.

"Not that good," she said with a shrug. "I'm sorry. It's all pretty expensive, and if I intend to see Sherry once a week, there won't be much of my income left for living expenses."

Her comment made Chris laugh.

"It's okay" he said and leaned forward to grab another slice of pizza, caringly offering her a bite. "I actually wish you could stay around forever. Maybe we should search for an apartment for the both of us."

Something about his comment made her heart jump so hard that the bit of food she was currently chewing nearly got down her windpipe. Living with Chris like back when she'd been a teenager suddenly filled her chest with a warm sensation of joy and nostalgia, as there had never been any other place where she'd felt home.

"But that will only go well until you want to bring a guy home," he added, laughing more loudly now. "I mean, I can stay out longer to give you some privacy, but I wouldn't like to have to sleep on a bench in the park so your lover won't run away-" he paused and pulled up his sleeve, tensing his biceps theatrically. "When your strong older brother shows up."

The sadness about his words rushed so deep that she could only manage to roll her eyes instead of laughing at his feigned cocky comment, and she punched his upper arm a little too hard for anyone to consider it friendly. Chris assuming she could be happy—or comfortable—with any other man but him, was devastating.

"Oh shut up!" she yelled. "You should know that I would only choose brave men who don't fear you."

"I hope so!"

Her brother laughed and slung his arms around her, making her heart race so wildly in her chest that she feared she would faint. They hadn't been that close to each other since Antarctica—or Canada, maybe—and, sometimes, a tiny part of her had believed that she had slowly gotten over him.

"I'm really happy you're here, Claire."

How foolish she had been all this time, ignoring the obvious signs that yelled at her that she couldn't run from her feelings. The fact that there was no other man who could ever make her feel complete, that she couldn't open up to a nice man like Adam, rejecting his love, only prove how tightly her heart was still held by the hands of Chris, the man who had the exclusive right to love her.

Yes, Chris could treat her as lovingly as he wanted, he could make it soft and slow, under the blanket with the lights turned off and in silence and even so, she would enjoy it.

She knew perfectly well that Chris wasn't the kind who did it in silence, having heard Jill and him often enough to _know _that he liked it loud, noisy and with the lights on. He loved it when Jill cried his name as much as he loved to groan hers when he came. No moan remained unreleased when Chris Redfield fucked you—so unlike Adam.

The mere thought of it caught her unprepared and the arousal flushed her cheeks with a hot rush of blood she couldn't play down. When the inside of Chris' arm brushed her breast accidentally, she felt the heat between her thighs rise to a dangerous limit. She shifted uncomfortably under him and her brother looked up, soon catching her chin in two fingers as he inspected her closely, his face marred with concern.

"Are you okay? You look like you have a fever."

Her eyes widened at his words. Fever? The only reason she was currently feverish was Chris and his closeness, and the revelation that those feelings she had believed to be dead were still very alive in her inners made her feel more uncomfortable than having to fake an orgasm when she was with her coworker.

"Are you sure?" she muttered as she watched how Chris jumped to his feet. A second after, the window was closed and he was ripping open cabinets and drawers in search for medicine.

"It's either that or you're in love with me!" he exclaimed jokingly as he tossed the boxes with almost complete blisters away. "Shit, these are all expired."

Claire ignored the comment about her being in love with him with brave serenity and rolled off the couch, her hand pressed onto her forehead.

"Maybe you're right," she said and closed her eyes. "I'm sure it's just because I worked too much these days. I'll go to bed and tomorrow I'll be at my fullest again."

Chris turned back to face her with a concerned but warm smile.

"Okay," he replied, nodding and stretched his arms out to point at the surroundings. "You go to bed. I will take care of this mess."

The urge to disappear from Chris's sight was too strong and Claire gladly obeyed, turning on her heel after mouthing a soft _good night and sleep well _and dashing into Chris' bedroom. Once the door was shut, she pressed her back against it and hid her face in her hands.

Why did she have to be like this?

* * *

It was one of those sleepless nights, loaded with embarrassing thoughts that came back to her like a boomerang as soon as she managed to toss them away, and when Chris had long turned off the lights in the living room, Claire was still lying wide awake. All hopes that her destructive feelings for her brother had died over the years had vanished now, as the signs her body was sending her were too obvious to be ignored.

She was still in love with him.

"Fuck," she hissed as tears shot into her eyes, mercilessly rolling down her temples and onto the pillow whenever she blinked.

The buzzing of her phone interrupted her musings of self-pity and desperation and Claire grabbed the device quickly and hid it under the covers, afraid that another incoming message might ring Chris awake—or the neighbor's dog, which would have had even more dreadful consequences. Listening closely to any outside tremor, she soon concluded that her brother was still sleeping, cradled in his own respiratory noises, and that it was safe to risk a glance at her phone screen. She'd gotten a message from Leon.

_Awake? _

Wiping off her tears, Claire began to type her affirmative response into the device. She had been waiting for a message or a call from him all day long, as they always spoke Saturday night after her visit to Sherry—that was, when he was currently off duty, of course. Claire pressed the phone against her chest and waited for the call to come in, even surprised by how fast he was that night.

"Hey you," she whispered, a happy smirk distorting her voice into a cheerful greeting. "How are you?"

Leon chuckled, but the deep sigh he sent through the line just a second after was enough for Claire to know that something was bothering him.

"Leon, what's wrong?"

"I'm alright," he said. "Sorry for the late call, but I was caught in a briefing. You see Sherry today?"

She breathed shallowly, afraid to miss any detail in his voice that would give away more information about his well-being if the sound was too loud.

"Yes, she loved the gifts and says thanks."

"That's great," he replied with a soft laugh—followed, again, by a sigh. "Listen Claire, I won't be available for the next two weeks, okay?"

She blinked the astonishment off and sat up, back straight as she listened to his tale.

"That long? Is everything okay?" She asked for professional reasons, too, as any bigger mission Leon might get sent on would probably mean more work for Terra Save's new Operations Department, in charge of the strategic building of survivor camps.

"Yeah, well," Leon replied, a hint of something unfamiliar in his voice. It wasn't until he spoke the last words that Claire realized it was fear. "I can't say much about it."

He was afraid.

He was as afraid as the young cop she had encountered one rainy night in a town called Raccoon City, when they'd stumbled into a nightmare with the best of intentions and a determination that had welded them together in one single night. It was a bond never bound to break, and as the other side of that eternal coin forged during a nightmare, Claire knew that, despite not being able to say much about it, he wanted to speak about it—desperately.

"You will do great," she whispered into the line in an attempt to give him hope.

All she got from him was another sigh.

"I will try, Claire." He cleared his throat, as if the next piece of information had gotten stuck in his throat—or as if it was trying to tear it open, as the words sounded gurgled out. "If anything happens to me, don't let them make Sherry think it was her fault, okay?"

The rising chest she felt under her palm was the one sign that gave away that she was still breathing. Leon's words had hit a very special and hurtful spot in her, stinging into the deepest of her inners like a well-sharpened lance.

"Don't say that, Leon. You have been trained for anything! Nothing will ever happen to you."

Of course he would come back. Leon had the expertise and training to fearlessly step into any battle, and he had the spirit to get out of it victoriously, with scratches and broken ribs, but alive. He was a survivor of Raccoon City, a superhuman built through government training and, after all, still a very humble man— the kind of guys meant to write history. Claire knew he would come back because there was no other possible outcome, but fear, as every other feeling, wasn't always rational, and she found herself shivering restlessly to the beat of her hammering heart.

"Just promise me…" he began to plead.

"You will come back."

* * *

**Welcome to the next part of Family Portrait! We hope you enjoy this second part, which will have some Cleon, a lot of Incestfield thoughts and the sting of past Wesklaire mistakes. Don't worry, Incestfield-fans, we promise not to let you down!**

**If you want to know more about how Rebecca ended up in the team that worked with Sherry, we invite you to read Corpasite's work _Fractured Promises_ :D**


	2. Painful pleasure and lucidity of love

**Painful pleasure and the lucidity of love**

The days went by slowly when you were left in uncertainty, waiting for news from overseas. She and Leon had both been feigning comfort when they'd ended their call that night, fearing that it was indeed the last time they would speak to each other, and the more time passed, the harder it became for Claire to come up with a good explanation she could give to sooth Sherry's worries.

What Claire hadn't known was how many struggles Chris' organization was going through in the meantime. Standing in the shadows of the much larger and more powerful Federal Bioterrorism Commission, which had taken absolute control over the fight, the B.S.A.A. had severely restricted permissions to intervene and was doomed to sit and watch while others did most of the work—and got all the credit for it. Chris told Claire everything about their problems one evening while she was living with him.

The search for an apartment on her own was troublesome, too, as nothing met her expectations regarding comfort, situation or price, and Claire already feared she would have to share a place with someone. Chris wasn't the only one who had suggested to become roommates; Adam had been so kind to offer her a room in his apartment, too, even after she'd told him that getting involved had been a mistake. He was truly a sweetheart, but living with Adam would have been as much of a bad idea as sharing rooms with Chris was, and so, the decision to keep searching until she found a place for herself had been easy. No matter how much it hurt her to be so damn close to her brother and to _know_ that their feelings towards each other were imbalanced, she would have to resist their temporary coexistence for the sake of their sibling bond. It was hard, admittedly, as seeing Chris go through his daily routine of showering, getting dressed and undressing again was causing her sensations she could feel nothing but ashamed about. Also, the fact that she was making him sleep on the couch was raising the guilt in her, and so the day she finally found a place to stay, Claire came home in the most excited mood.

"Chris!" She yelled as she kicked the door open, arms full of groceries to stock their fridge for the upcoming, last days together. "I have found an apartment! I'm not going to be a burden to you anymore."

Chris was on the phone, seemingly agitated as he walked through the living room.

"Yes, I know, Clive," he said pouting. "And I'm glad too that we're getting more and more requests, but that's no need to make it look bigger than it is. We're a non-profit organization and we have common goals with the FBC."

He turned to face Claire with a wink, and though the tone of his voice sounded a little displeased, his expression showed her that he actually had good news for her.

"Okay, fine. Let's talk tomorrow," he said and hung up, clicking his tongue as he tossed his phone away. "Did I hear that right? You found a new place?"

Claire, still a little breathless from leaping up the stairs instead of taking the elevator, gave him a confused nod.

"It's a nice little apartment not far from here. I'm sure you'll love it," she explained and cocked her head questioningly. "Is everything okay?"

Chris pressed his lips together, giving his expression a touch of bafflement as he pointed backwards to the couch where his phone had been dismissed right before.

"You mean the call?" He began to laugh and waved off all the importance of the subject. "Yes. It just seems that more and more FBC agents are applying for jobs at the BSAA, as they didn't like how they handled Terragrigia some months ago. And that's great because we grow, but O'Brian wants to give a press conference and announce it as a milestone in the history of the organization." Chris shook his head as he spoke. "I don't think it's a good idea. We have to give a professional image and we're not going to achieve that by celebrating every misstep of fellow counterterrorism groups."

Claire had walked into the kitchen to store the groceries she wasn't going to use to cook dinner, but all her attention was drawn to Chris and his story. She agreed with him that it wasn't a nice move to make such things public too soon.

"I thought you had a Press or PR department to make such choices," she replied, opening a drawer and taking out a large knife. "Wasn't Monica working in it?"

Chris, propped against the wall next to the fridge and quietly flirting with a nearly empty bottle of beer, laughed darkly before he answered, "yeah, she's just not really on my side since…"

When Claire turned to face him, she found him fidgeting shyly.

"Since you dumped her?"

"Yeah."

She rolled her eyes.

"That's not very professional," she said and walked to the refrigerator, taking out two bottles of beer and handing one to her brother. "And she doesn't deserve that we talk about her for too long."

The bottles clinked and the siblings took a long sip before Chris's look softened notably.

"So, you're really going to leave me?"

It was one of those moments when she had to gather all her willpower to remain strong and resolute, as one wrong word from Chris would make her shake off all good intentions and purposes, to tell the lovely old man who was so nice to rent her his apartment for a totally undervalued price that she had changed her mind, and to stay with her brother and suffer in silence because being so close to him and knowing that her feelings were so horribly one-sided was killing her.

'_Careful, Claire_,' she thought to herself and forced her lips into a smile as her hand lovingly ran through his hair.

"Come on! You will have your bed for yourself again!" she yelped with a laugh and kept tangling her fingers in his hair until Chris shrugged, with a full load of sorrow on his face.

"But I will miss you," he said, his voice adopting a bratty undertone due to the sheepish grin on his face, while his right index finger tapped the tip of Claire's nose. "I will have to get back to greasy take out every day. And I'll get fat."

"Oh, please. You can't get fat if you're spending ten hours in the gym every day," she whispered softly, not too loud, so the cry of grief in her voice wouldn't be audible. "But I will miss you, too."

They shared another look and a sip of their beer in silence, before Chris suddenly hummed, still gulping down the refreshing fluid. Sitting the bottle onto the counter, he grabbed Claire's wrist and pulled her after him into the living room with the words, "I have something to show you."

Claire's chest seemed to explode as she caught sight of the long, black jewelry box that obviously contained a bracelet and which stared at her as indecently as one of those delicious cheesecakes that used to flirt with her from behind the window of the pastry shop Terra Save had placed their headquarters next to. She carefully walked towards Chris, eyes steady on the box.

She should have paid more attention, she thought to herself when Chris opened the box and a precious, thin gold chain met her eyes, as it was evidently meant to be worn by someone else's wrist. He was just _showing _it to her so she could identify it as Jill Valentine's.

It had her name written all over it.

"Oh, Chris. She will love it."

Her fingers drove slowly over the shining links that formed the bracelet. It sat quietly on the navy blue velvet lining as she caressed it from one end to the other, making the exquisite pendant in the shape of a piano dangle and dance, and wondering if Chris had had it customized especially for his partner.

"You think so?" Chris asked with a hesitant shrug. "I saw the pendant the other day on a necklace and thought about her immediately. She doesn't wear jewelry because she believes it could be a dangerous complement in battle, but she can put it on when she's home, don't you think?"

An encouraging smile blossomed on Claire's lips as she inspected the pendant a little more closely. It was truly precious, with tiny crystals or even diamonds placed around the thin frame that drew the contours of a piano. She hooked her finger into the chain and pulled softly on it feeling how easily it would give in if someone actually attempted to tear it.

"Yes, she can," Claire whispered softly. "And it will look so good on her."

When her look turned back to Chris' face, she spotted that hint of delight on it that always brightened up her day—unless it was regarding Jill Valentine. If it was about Jill, she hated it. It was something that told her that, no matter what happened, Jill would always come first.

"I hope she will like it."

* * *

The vast majority of her belongings had quickly been stuffed into her suitcase and a couple of boxes, and Claire could leave Chris' place as soon as she got the keys to her new apartment. After the first cleaning was done, she proceeded to decorate the place as she liked it; homey, with candles and photographs; and the cold, white rooms became a lovely place over just a weekend. On Monday afternoon, when every object had already been assigned a new place to sit or stand, Claire decided it was time she paid her brother a visit to give him his keys back—if not the one to his apartment, then, at least, the ones to his storage room and the mailbox.

She should have called before.

"Chris?" When she opened the door, she found the lights on, but the living room empty. "Are you there?"

She definitely should have called.

Making her way into the kitchen, Claire was soon forced to meet the truth behind the abandoned place, confronted with the open jewelry box that had once contained the golden bracelet. All that was left of it now was the imprint it had painted onto the velvet cushion, and Claire suspected the chain was long lying around Jill's tiny wrist, where it belonged. Fingers absently brushed the case as pictures of two lovers played in her mind. Maybe they had gone out for dinner, or for a walk in the park, or for some other activity lovers liked to do when one had just spent his entire paycheck on a gift for the other. What did Claire know about love anyway? She knew nothing and she would probably never find out.

As soon as she'd snapped the case shut and decided to leave the keys in the apartment and go, the voice of her destruction made her freeze with irritation. Nothing more than a soft giggle, Claire perfectly heard the undertone of love and desire in the female vibration; the joy of being alive in the arms of the best man on Earth.

It came doubtlessly from the bedroom.

She stood and listened, expecting either the door to open and Chris and Jill to walk out, or the headboard to slam against the wall just like all those nights she had laid awake listening to their lovemaking.

_Squeak_.

It was the mattress, naturally; that ugly, monstruos thing made of steel and ripped baby screams; that was now yelling out how they were misusing it shamelessly. Clenching her teeth, Claire let a sigh escape and began to turn Chris' keys to get them off her keyring. She managed to leave the keys on the countertop and grab the tube of toothpaste she'd had forgotten in the bathroom, deciding that she'd return some time later and laugh with her brother at the ridiculous nature of the situation, that's what she told herself as she walked to the door. With a disappointed smirk on her lips, she ripped the door open, in the desperate need to run from the mirror of her shame, and was confronted with the last face she'd expected to see that afternoon.

As handsome as usual, he gave her the shyest look from behind the fence that his hair drew across his face.

"Leon!"

* * *

"This is a nice place," the blond mentioned as he looked around the apartment, fingers tightly clinging to the second can of beer. "It really suits you."

Claire simply nodded in response, shifting her weight from elbow to shoulder in hope to find something close to rest on the tiny couch she was sharing with her friend. It wasn't easy.

He had come to see her. He could have called, for sure, but he'd preferred to step by Chris' place and ask for her, and he had appeared in the best of moments, saving her from the destructiveness of her own jealousy. Jealousy? Claire shook her head as she weighed the idea. No, there was nothing wrong about feeling awkward when you caught your big brother having sex, was there?

"Thanks," she whispered as the pad of her thumb brushed the tab of the half-emptied can and made the aluminum clink.

They had barely spoken since they'd arrived—rather since they'd met at Chris' door—and it was taking all of Claire's good-willed efforts to come up with an idea to make him talk to her. It was evident that something bad had happened to her friend, and no matter how deep the shock of finding that Chris and Jill had revived their passion had stung, right now Leon needed her full attention, and after all he'd done to protect her, it was the least she could do for him. Before she could think about it, she let her hand crawl up his arm and squeeze his shoulder gently. Leon turned his face an inch towards her.

"You can talk to me, Leon. You know that, right?"

Something close to a smile rushed over his lips, vanishing before her eyes could hold an image of it. He lifted the empty can, making it dangle joyfully between two fingers.

"I think I need another one of these before," he mumbled with a sad sigh and Claire got up.

Scotch had been the first thing he'd asked for, naturally. When she'd been living in DC, she'd always had a bottle for him stored in the back of her kitchen cabinet, but having spent literally three nights in her new place, she hadn't had the time to do a proper grocery shopping and none of the high-percent fluids he had demanded were currently available at Claire's place. So, it had to be beer.

"I'm gonna bring you one," she said with a chuckle as she walked into the kitchen, grabbing two fresh cans of beer for herself and Leon.

When she returned to the living room, she found Leon with his head in his hands, fingers raking through his blond strands as he breathed shallowly.

"Leon?" She called his name and he lifted his head. "What's wrong?"

Rolling his jaw, he sighed again and took the can from her, ripping it open like a man who'd been wandering through the desert for days. He gulped down half of the content before he wiped a drop of sweat off his forehead.

"I fucked up, Claire," he said as he finally began to speak. "I fucked up for real."

She put her own can away and instantly placed her cold fingers around his free hand, rubbing it softly as a silent beg for him to tell her more, to trust her and open up to her.

"It can't be that bad," she whispered and smiled when the blond's eyes jumped to her face. "I'm sure we can solve it together."

His hand turned in her grip until their palms met and their fingers entwined. They sat there for a while, listening to each other's breathing as their hands regained a healthy human temperature in each other's hold, until Leon laughed a little.

"I should have known better," he said and shrugged a shoulder. "I knew who she was working for, but…"

Claire lost her breath when she heard the words that popped out of his mouth. Leon was a brilliant fighter; cold and precise in everything he did, and the side of him she was seeing now was new to her. It scared her in a way she hadn't believed to be possible, as the deadly-serious agent in front of her unfolded and the core of a man—or boy—came to show.

"Who is she?" She asked, a little afraid of the truth.

His hand squeezed her a little tighter as he swallowed down the agony of his own confession.

"The girl I met in Raccoon," he said and turned back to the redhead, staring into her eyes with his usual resolution, like someone who had just come to terms with his sins. "I met her in Spain."

"She's alive?" Claire's eyebrows rose at the revelation.

She had never given much credit to Leon's suspicions about Ada Wong's possible escape from NEST, and had rather believed the spy had died in the underground lab. Leon nodded.

"She helped me. Again." He sighed once more. "And I helped her, too. Again."

His look turned so shy and full of pain that it made Claire's heart throb. What did he mean by _helping her_?

"What did you do?"

After a moment of silence, Leon released her hand, as if holding him while he confessed his sins would corrupt her, making her more miserable than she was already.

"I helped her get the G-Virus…" He shrugged. "And _Las Plagas_." His face distorted grotesquely by shame, he added, "I am no better than her."

Claire had to force her eyes to blink, or they would have dried out from all the senseless staring they were up to. The air around her began to feel sticky on her skin and in her windpipe, and she could barely bring out a word, too distracted by the urge to slice his abdomen open and hang him on his bowels, like the traitor he was.

Didn't he understand that he wasn't only failing the country he was working for, but all the innocent they had once sworn to protect? Didn't he see that Sherry was alive because someone in the government still believed he was of use to them? What would happen if they found out that the prodigy kid they had made their best special agent was cooperating with the enemy whenever it suited him? Leon wasn't only playing with Sherry's safety and his own, he was also betraying all of their common principles.

With her body tense, she was fighting down the need to shake the memory of that woman out of his head and pull him back to the ground, when another thought hit her in the guts and made her calm down instantly.

"Why?" She asked with a low voice. "What made you do it?"

Leon exhaled, his eyes flickering like the light of the candles.

"I trusted her," he whispered finally. "I trusted her and I needed her help and…" The point of his tongue licked his shaky lips. "I just trusted her."

And Claire understood.

He was in love with her.

He smiled softly, with a peaceful emotion on his face that showed her that he had already accepted the truth. Yes, he was in love, and it made him see the good in the woman who had once walked into Raccoon City with the dishonorable motive of stealing a sample of the dreaded G-Virus and spread more chaos across the world.

But was it any worse to love the traitor herself than to trust the traitor who held the secret about who you loved?

"I see," she replied, her heart beating fast as all the memories of Albert Wesker came back to her. "It's okay, Leon. There's nothing that can't be fixed."

The confused expression on his face said that this was definitely not the reaction he had expected from her. Claire giggled softly and, slinging her arms around Leon's neck, she softly kissed his cheek. Weren't they both just little fools that were trying to survive in a world full of superhumans; babies who were struggling to become responsible adults? People did stupid things when they were in love, it seemed. And just like Leon had been helping a dangerous spy achieve her goals, she herself had once betrayed her brother by making a dangerous deal with the devil himself.

"Thank you for telling me."

_I always believed we were supposed to be best of friends until the end of our pitiful days, that surviving one night in a dying city glued people together into a bond more persistent than death itself. That night, though, we found out that we had so much more in common than Raccoon City and the subsequent trauma of it. We were both corrupt with forbidden feelings and we didn't fear breaking rules when it came to defend them._

_That night, everything changed for our friendship._

* * *

**It's been a while! Thank you all for the patience and love you have been showing to this story. We hope 2020 is treating you all well so far.**

**A huge thank you to Corpasite, who is pre-reading this so selflessly. If you enjoy Cleon, you should go and check out his stories!**

**Thank you all!**


	3. Tragedy

**Tragedy**

_Do you ever feel like you're a fictional character, damned to live adventures and miseries that someone else has been writing for you; that everything you do, feel and say has been precisely shaped by someone who just tries to escape the boredom of their own, pitiful life, and that you don't really exist? I feel like that all the time, to be honest; as though my story has been made up by someone out of mere pleasure. In my case, it's probably a fat, blonde lady who sits at her keyboard and dreams of all the dicks she hasn't gotten to ride, because, let's admit this, my life has been a chaos full of violence, denied love and fears, but there has been plenty of sex. Oh, don't look at me like you had any reason to complain._

_Where was I? Oh, right. Well, the obese author who was vicariously living through me must have eventually gotten tired of all the sad nights of listening and staring, of longing and needing, and added the most painful of all plot twists to the story—especially for Chris._

_Jill Valentine died one summer night in 2006._

* * *

When Claire rang the doorbell, she had long heard the female voice that was waiting for her on the other side of the door to Chris' apartment. Jill should have been far away that night—in South America or so—but it was a pleasant surprise to find she had returned to New York.

"Claire," the brunette exclaimed and opened the door wider for the redhead to enter. "Chris is on the phone. Come in."

The women hugged one-armedly and the brunette proceeded to take the pizza box from Claire's hands and carried it into the kitchen.

"What a surprise," Claire said with a cheerful laugh as she walked after the older woman. "I thought you were abroad."

The brunette nodded an apology and shrugged, a cute pout plastered onto her face.

"I was," she said and combed her hair back into a low, comfy ponytail. "But I was called back because we're about to receive a hint on Spencer and the company wants me close. Didn't Chris tell you I was coming?" she asked while handing a beer to the redhead, who began shaking her head in a sarcastic manner. "I see. Lucky we have enough food here."

Claire laughed along. Chris' forgetfulness was one of their favorite subjects to giggle at whenever the two women reunited, as the older Redfield had the funnily irritating habit of believing that everybody had the power to read his mind and that they didn't need official notifications from his side.

"It's okay, Jill," Claire said with a wink as she began to search the cabinets for plates. "I'm happy to see you. It's been… what… a month since we last met? How have you been?"

As she was propped against the upper kitchen cabinets, the older woman's eyes complained in silence about stuffed schedules and never-ending missions while her mouth forced itself into a smile.

"It's going really well," she said as she helped herself to a can of olives. "Almost too well. How about Terra Save?"

Claire nodded in response, meaning that the NGO was getting stronger, too, now being able to help more people than they had been before. Ever since they had taken care of the survivors of Terragrigia, with a spectacular management of the resources available, Terra Save had become a valued organization among the counter-bioterror groups. It was something they truly deserved after being ridiculed by the actively-fighting FBC and BSAA—even though not by all of their members, of course—for years.

"We're growing considerably," she whistled her words into the bottle before taking a long sip. "I just don't know if I should be happy or concerned about it."

The look Jill gave her said more than a million words, especially to a person who had seen bioterror as closely as Claire had. Surviving an outbreak like Raccoon City gave you a kind of sensitivity that was hard to achieve through normal social work and sacrifice for others; one that lay in the experience of running for your life, of restlessly combing an area in search for needed ammo and shaking with every creature that you had to take down knowing that they had once been as human as yourself. Of course, getting more and more attention from the media and the masses was good for their organizations, but it also meant that the need for their work had become too much for governments and civilians to ignore.

Jill lifted the bottle and drank, joining Claire in her silent musing. When her wide sleeve slid down her arm, revealing the golden bracelet Chris had gotten for her some time before, the redhead's thoughts rushed to other things than bioterror though. It looked so good on her, Claire admitted sadly as she watched that one single piece of gold wrapped around the brunette's wrist and the tiny piano dangling from it. Jill wore the charm so naturally as though she'd had it her entire life; as though she was proud of belonging to someone else. Claire sighed inaudibly. She herself wouldn't mind being considered someone else's property either, as long as that someone else was Chris.

"You said you were awaiting a lead on Spencer?" She asked all of a sudden, cutting both the uncomfortable silence in the kitchen and the destructive thoughts in her own head.

The brunette nodded, huffing out a laugh as she turned her penetrating look of ice to Claire, reading the younger woman's concern from her face.

"They've found some hints in Europe, yes. The old man might be able to lead us to Wesker," she blurted out and crashed her bottle back onto the counter. "He's been playing his games for too long now. It's time he pays for what he did to S.T.A.R.S. and the whole of mankind."

Claire sighed into the half-empty bottle, the breath of it ricocheting on the surface and flooding back to her lips. Tracking down Oswell Spencer would be a huge success for the B.S.A.A. and the opportunity to catapult Chris' and Jill's Alliance to the top of the counter-bioterrorism corps—that was, if there was any higher position to achieve after the fall of the FBC.

"So," she said carefully. "When are you leaving?"

Chris stepped into the kitchen with the stealthy pace of a cat and startled her. Ponytail jumping, and with a hand on her heart, she wondered how such a big guy like Chris could walk so silently through the house.

"Sorry," he said and shrugged apologetically as he freed Jill from the beer in her hand and took a long sip. "We're leaving tomorrow. Parker Luciani volunteered to check the situation before we arrive, but whatever we find there, it will be Jill and my job to confront Spencer."

A wave of his head allowed him to look at Jill, his partner, the one he had chosen to stand next to him when he'd triumph over bioterrorism, and the powerful energy that whizzed between them made Claire feel superfluous and tiny. But that was secondary now that Chris was willing to do anything to find and bring down the one man who had always been one step ahead, who had victoriously watched the fall of all the others, and who, after all those years, still knew more about her than any other person in the world.

"Just be careful, okay?" Her fear made its way out in the tiny whisper that left her lips and Chris turned to his sister.

"Don't worry, Claire," he howled excitedly and softly brushed her cheek with his thumb before he turned to the door and walked out of the kitchen. "Everything will be alright."

With her look set straight on the floor, Claire breathed in until her lungs seemed to burst, letting the air out slowly in a desperate attempt to relax.

"Everything will be fine," she told herself and tried so hard to believe it.

Her head turned a little when she noticed Jill's presence right next to her. The brunette leaned against the counter, with her arms crossed and her face turned to the spot on the ground where Claire's eyes had gotten stuck before.

"I know you're worried, Claire," she said and nodded. "And, believe it or not, so are we. Chris acts like the big, brave guy, but I know he's terrified." She gently elbowed Claire in the side. "But I promise you I'll watch out for him, okay?"

Claire turned to the other woman and saw the bright shine of a brave fighter in the blue of her eyes. The woman who had survived the darkest side of Raccoon City was giving her word to protect her brother, just as Claire had once intended to ask her, before she had left for college. With a smile on her face, she took Jill's hand and held it.

"Thank you."

_Despite all my jealousy and hidden frustration, Jill was like the sister I'd never had, and I know that she loved Chris madly. She loved him so much that she promised to protect him from all evil._

_And that's exactly what she did._

* * *

"I think we'll have to sit and talk to each other, Kennedy."

Claire switched through the content the hotel's pay-per-view offered, remaining rather underwhelmed by the selection of old movies and cooking shows. "I think the only thing that might not be total crap is the porn menu."

Leon's laugh came from the bathroom, right before he stepped into the bedroom with only his blue jeans on. Had she been any other straight girl in the world, she would have begun to drool at the sight of his well-shaped abs and the perfectly toned skin over them, but their friendship had gotten so close throughout the years that all sexual attraction had been substituted by a feeling of friendly caring and the pride to know that they had become irreplaceable to one another up to the point that she knew with absolute certainty that they would still be around when all the lovers had vanished. Not that they had actually tried it, but Claire knew that she'd be able to stare at his bare dick and not wish he would use it on her. It was funny, but her feelings toward Leon had turned into the kind of benevolent and frigid emotions she was supposed to harbor for Chris.

"Porn is fine," Leon said and took up his empty glass, walked to the mini bar and rolled a couple of ice cubes into it before showering them with a generous stream of Bourbon.

Months after their encounter at Harvardville airport, they had finally gotten the chance to meet under more pleasant circumstances. A hotel at the beach it was, with incredible views of the sea and all luxuries anyone could wish for. They had booked the honeymoon suite, not because of what they were planning on using the mattress for, but of the breathtaking sights from the balcony and because its minibar included the most incredible selection of whisky Leon had ever seen. He had spent the entire flight enthusing about it and had left Claire wondering how often her friend had really been in that place before—and with whom. The free bottle of champagne and the chocolate hearts they had found next to the bed became the target of Claire's devoted hunger for sweets while Leon tasted one hard drink after another.

"So, porn it is!" Claire pressed a couple of buttons, chose a title as exquisite like _Everyone I did last summer_, and tossed the remote away. "Won't you get in trouble when the government sees your order?"

The blond shook his head as he sat on the floor next to her.

"I'll tell Hunnigan to photoshop it out of the bill before submitting it."

Claire turned to him with widely-open eyes.

"Would she do that for you?"

And Leon laughed, putting a somewhat arrogant demeanor on as he said, "She does everything I want." He shrugged, shyly now. "If I ask very nicely and let her drive my car every now and then."

A little stunned, Claire nodded.

"I see." She laughed and grabbed one of the chocolate-peanut bars, beginning to pull on the plastic wrapper like a madwoman. "So, have you seen Angela again?"

Leon put the glass down and looked at her.

"Who?"

Once the candy was freed from its wrapper, Claire turned her attention back to Leon, willing to clarify.

"Angela Miller," she said with a laugh. "The S.R.T. Operative whose brother attacked the WilPharma Facility and infected himself with G?"

Leon narrowed his eyes and rubbed his chin theatrically.

"Hmmm, yes, that sounds familiar."

Claire laughed offendedly and threw a pillow at him, which was elegantly dodged by the agent.

"Okay, okay, yeah, right." He said, with one hand lifted defensively. "Angela. If I've seen her again? No."

Claire stopped blinking and stared skeptically at her friend.

"Really?" she asked with a headshake. "Not even once?"

The blond took a sip from his drink and, after making a sound of pleasure, he shrugged amusedly at his friend.

"Why should I? It was just one mission, and admittedly, she's lucky she survived."

The redhead gave him a confused look, tilting her head to the side until her ponytail dangled freely in the air.

"I don't know. You went diving together, didn't you?" she asked with a malevolent smirk on her face, at which Leon rolled his eyes and grunted.

"Ah, right."

Claire laughed.

"And I had the feeling that you liked her." She narrowed her eyes. "I mean, that is, if you liked _anything _that day. You were so fucking cold and excessively serious. You looked like you were holding in a fart."

Claire laughed out loudly as the blond grimaced and rubbed the downside of his nose.

"I was hungover."

Claire stopped laughing abruptly and blinked at him in amused astonishment.

"What?"

The agent shrugged, rolling his jaw into a pout.

"I had a normal, boring meeting scheduled for the following day," he said. "So I got drunk to celebrate that one free night I had. How could I have known that there was going to be an outbreak in an airport terminal?"

The smug smile he gave her was so deliciously funny that Claire couldn't hold back another laugh.

"Oh, my god," she howled. "You shameless being." When her laugh attack concluded and one silent tear was wiped away, she added, "so, what was that diving thing about? Did you bang her while on an assignment?"

Leon grimaced in response.

"I might tell you about it someday."

As the blond poured down his drink, Claire reached for her phone on the bed, checking if she hadn't gotten a message from Chris. The last time she had heard from him had been when Jill and he had landed in Europe, ready to join the European team in their decisive quest. It had been weeks since then.

"Any news from Chris?" Leon asked and ripped her out of her daydream.

A sad head shake was all she could give in response, and Leon turned closer to her, lovingly stroking her hair.

"I'm sure he's fine," he said. "This is just being a very hard mission and he might not find the time to notify you."

Claire smiled softly. Yeah, it wasn't the first time that Chris didn't find the time to tell her how he was and, knowing him, he probably believed he had already given her a call. Also, if anything had happened to him, the B.S.A.A. would let her know, for sure.

"Come on," Leon said suddenly and crawled onto the bed. "Let's get comfy and criticize the unrealistic postures in that movie together."

He was such a sweetheart, Claire thought as she laughed along. Leon had the power to make her feel lighter and save her every time she needed it— like all the times he had saved her before. Right when she was about to put the phone away, the device began to vibrate alarmingly, and one look at the name on the screen was enough to make her shiver.

"Barry!" She pressed the phone to her ear and listened. The gasp on the other line could only mean the worst and she felt her inner organs twist inside her body until she whispered sadly, "What happened?"

Leon hadn't stopped watching her since she had picked up, caringly taking her free hand in his and squeezing it protectively as she listened to Barry on the other end of the line.

"_Claire, listen_."

That moment, she burst into tears, because the tone in Barry's voice said clearly that something was wrong and that someone—probably Chris—was dead.

"Chris!" She cried out loud and had Leon's arms slung around her instantly.

"_No, Claire_," Barry said on the other end. "_Chris is… he's alive._" A sigh followed, announcing the other side of the coin someone had flipped and decided to turn their lives upside down. "_It's Jill._"

She stopped sobbing, careful not to show how relieved she was that her brother was_… alive_, and that it was Jill instead who…

"What? What happened?"

Barry grunted in a gruff voice.

"_Chris. He's not taking it well, Claire_," he said. "_Can you come?_"

And before she hung up, Leon was already making a call himself.

"Hunnigan? Can you book me a flight to Hungary?" he asked carefully. "No. Not for me. It's for a friend. Yes, I'll lend you my car."

* * *

It was incredible how easily destructive thoughts came when you were alone on a plane for more than nine hours. The in-flight movie menu wasn't as entertaining as Claire had hoped, and so, her mind drifted to whenever there wasn't a flight attendant bothering her with food or blankets. What was she going to find once she landed? Barry had promised he would pick her up at the airport and bring her directly to the tents the B.S.A.A. had set up close to the place where Jill had lost her life. As far as she had understood, Chris and Jill had encountered Wesker himself in the Mansion where Spencer had been spending the rest of his pitiful existence, and Jill had gone out of the window fighting their former Captain. Chris had, since then, been searching for her body, in whatever state it would be, only because he couldn't stand the thought of putting an empty casket into the ground. After all the fallen friends and comrades he hadn't gotten to bury, he _needed _to find Jill's body. So far, though, he hadn't found any.

"Poor Chris," Claire whispered against the window of the car Barry was driving. "I can see why he doesn't want to let go. Without a body, he can never really say goodbye to her."

The man next to her grunted as his fingers tensed around the steering wheel.

"Honestly, Claire, the fact that we haven't found anything bothers me," he said, accelerating quickly to avoid the stop at a red traffic light while Claire held on tight to the handle, trying to keep herself from being smashed against the windshield in case Barry would suddenly brake. "I'm not saying that Jill stood up and walked away, although, I would hope so, of course. But Wesker?"

Her face marred with a tight frown, Claire turned her head to face the older man, who returned the look with a shadow of concern under his eyes. The possibility that Wesker, Jill or anyone could have survived a deep fall from a cliff seemed unrealistic, even if they'd hit the lake that lay at the foot of the rocks instead of the deep forest, but given the superhuman velocity Chris had reported his former Captain had acquired, suggested that he must, at least, have fought for his life.

Was he really still out there?

There was nothing left to say about the subject, Claire decided, as the only thing that currently mattered to her was Chris' wellbeing, and the certainty that Albert Wesker was still alive had haunted her long enough to let the mere improbability of his death upset her now.

* * *

Her heart started to race as soon as she spotted the half-dismantled tents. Eyes anxiously jumping across the forest glade that had served as an operation point to the B.S.A.A. troops, her only hope was to find Chris among the crowd and to assure that he was alright. Barry had tried to prepare her for what was about to come, what she was going to find in those dirty tents, but not even her brother's old friend could have known what was going to happen after the B.S.A.A. suspended the search for Jill's body.

"They want us to retrieve," said a round man with dark locks who'd previously introduced himself as Parker Luciani. "A couple of people will stay, but they want all their S.O.A. back home."

Claire barely heard his complaint, her attention never stuck for long on any face that wasn't Chris', and she kept searching for the eyes of her brother. They weren't there, she concluded, heart wrapped in concern.

"Where is he?" she eventually asked and turned her serious gaze back to Luciani, who lowered his eyebrows into a frown and let his head wave at the huge mansion that stood on the top of the cliff not far from them.

"He's still out there."

Parker spoke with a mix of admiration and pity, and Claire barely understood until Barry put his hand into her shoulder.

"That's why I called you, Claire," he told her when she turned to face him. "We all have been searching restlessly these past weeks. Chris, of course, didn't take it well, but he was serene and focused. Now that it's time to give up searching, though..."

He shook his lowered head dramatically and Claire felt the tears sting into her eyes.

"He doesn't want to let go."

That was the sign for Claire to turn around and start sprinting through the woods and towards the mountain that rose into the cold evening in front of her eyes. Ignoring the calls and screams that followed her from the tent, her feet danced like feathers over the soil and stones, the fallen twigs and the thick, snake-like roots that emerged from the moist ground of the forest. The loose backpack, now seemingly weighing a ton, dropped into the grass somewhere between the density of trees, but Claire kept running steadily towards her only goal.

Her brother needed her and it was time to return him all the favors of love he had done to her when she'd been a teenager, when he'd kept her safe and raised her, when he'd taught her how to use a gun and survive, when he'd come to rescue her from Rockfort Island and ended up flying after her to Antarctica. It was the first time that Chris needed _her _—not the other way around— and she was going to be there.

Her throat was sore from screaming his name when she finally found her brother standing on top of the cliff next to the mansion, glaring down into the abyss that had swallowed both his archenemy and the love of his life. He wasn't moving, bravely resisting the cold European breeze that whistled over the treetops and made them swing softly in the light of the setting sun. If you blinked too quickly, for a moment, you could have believed that he was going to jump after them as well, but Claire knew that he wouldn't just give up on life and leave her alone in the world. Not after all he had done to keep her safe.

"Chris!"

With the cold air rushing through her windpipe and shallowly filling her aching lungs, she walked the last steps towards him, repeating his name in the hope of finding a reaction of any kind in him.

"Chris."

He didn't turn until she put her hand onto his shoulder, and the picture shook her to the core; his eyes were red and swollen, but not from crying. Claire sighed sadly when she noticed the stench of vodka and cold sweat and the thick beard on his cheeks that vaguely hid the marks of malnutrition underneath, and she wondered for how long he hadn't showered, shaved or eaten properly. Chris' eyes narrowed when he realized who was standing next to him.

"Claire?" he mumbled incredulously, as if it was her who was supposed to be the dead body lying somewhere down in the cold canyon. "What are you doing here?"

With her head angled to the side and her lips widened into a smirk of grief and solace, she took a breath as she tried to remember if she had ever seen her brother in such a regrettable shape. Her hand squeezed his shoulder as she sighed.

"Barry called me," she whispered and blinked the threatening tears away. "He's worried about you."

Chris' left eye twitched in irritation before he grabbed her hand and removed it from his arm. It was the moment she saw the half-emptied bottle of vodka in his left hand.

"Worried?" He laughed darkly. After taking a long sip from the bottle, he turned around and yelled at the precipice in front of him, "that old sucker should be here with me, searching for Jill!"

Startled by the unfamiliarly aggressive tone in his voice, Claire jumped a little, trying her best not to take a step back and give him the certainty of the stronger. When Chris turned back to face her with that glance of resolution and fury in his eyes, she clenched her teeth and swallowed dry, keeping herself from flinching at his outburst.

She didn't fear he would harm her—at least not on purpose—but she had never heard such hard words coming from his lips. The lips that were meant to spread courage and hope among those who surrounded them, the lips that smiled at every challenge and danger lying ahead and the lips she had always desperately wanted to feel on hers were now spitting toxicity and hatred against those who loved him.

"And you?" he said with a grimace and a hint of pain in his words. "Are you going to tell me that she's dead, too?"

Claire didn't know what to respond, as he was obviously not listening to any of the well-meant invitations to give up the search for Jill Valentine—dead or alive. When she failed to come up with an answer, Chris grunted.

"You have no fucking idea!" He hissed in an attempt to break her. "She can't be dead, don't you see it?" He shook his head and took another gulp from the bottle as he kept staring challengingly into his sister's eyes. "She wouldn't leave me alone, Claire. Never. Not her!"

It was too late for her to say something, she knew, and all that was left for her to do was to stand and watch as Chris turned to the nearest boulder and, bottle tightly in his hand, punched the rocky surface, ripping a soft scream of surprise from her shaky lips. The loud sound of shattered glass seemed to finally pull her out of her trance and Claire immediately found herself jumping after him, shocked by the sudden curtain of red that rained from his hand and left dark stains on the ground, soaking the soft soil underneath.

"Chris," she wheezed and grabbed his hand to remove the shards of the bottle that remained in his grip. "What have you done?"

He stared at his own palm, serious and unimpressed by all the blood that kept pouring merrily from his vessels, as diluted with alcohol as it was; his face emotionless when Claire took her jacket off and wrapped it uselessly around his hand.

"You might need stitches," she said with a whimper and felt her own tears moisten her face. When she turned her eyes back to Chris, her brother was still looking at the lake of red without flinching and ignored the urgency of his self-inflicted cut.

"I know what Barry told you, Claire," he said with a self-convincing nod before his tired glance turned back to her. "But don't believe a word. He doesn't know. He doesn't know her like_ I_ do."

She winced as Chris' voice seemed to break under the weight of his own statement. When all the anger had vanished, there was nothing more than the tiny spark of hope left inside of him, and it was all he could hold onto when everything and everyone around him seemed to have conspired to stop him from finding his partner. If that was what he wanted, she would hold onto it with him.

"I know, Chris," Claire said and broke her own heart with it. "I know."

A hint of sympathy rushed over his face as he heard her words and he smiled at his sister with complicity.

"She's out there," he said and laughed, whole-heartedly. "She's out there and I'm going to find her."

Claire shivered as she heard herself say, "You are."

And she felt awful for lying to him, because if there was something she knew for sure, it was the fact that he could crawl through the cold mud forever, but he wouldn't find Jill there. When her grip around his hand tightened and his lips twitched, Claire saw her chance to bring him back to reality.

"But before, we should have someone look at this," her look dropped to her brother's bleeding palm. "You won't find her if you bleed to death first."

Chris pressed his lips together, as though he was thinking of another way to protest, but eventually nodded. With slow, sloppy steps, he followed his sister down the hill.

* * *

After an hour or two filled with time in the waiting room of the Hungarian hospital, a useless attempt to make Chris eat and the search for a decent hotel she could afford, the siblings eventually reached the room on the limits of Budapest. Chris stumbled into the room, the stinky trail of long days and sleepless nights following him closely, and Claire decided they had tortured the people around them for long enough. When her brother was about to drop into the cushions, she held his arm and gestured to the bathroom.

"A warm shower will help you relax and you will rest better."

Chris grunted in disagreement. Defying her brother's will, but with the advantage of sobriety, Claire managed to rid him of his shirt, shoes and pants very quickly, before stopping awkwardly at the sight of his dark gray boxer briefs and the idea of what lay underneath. His parts drew a wonderful curve between his strong thighs, and Claire found herself gasping in despair when the smell of intimacy, which should have disgusted her, turned her on up to a point where she could hardly focus on the tragic sadness that involved them.

Chris snarled at her lack of persistence and, bored of standing there in his underwear, he bent over, pulled his briefs down like a good kid and tore a soft shout of surprise from his sister's lips.

_Shit_.

He was simply beautiful, she decided from the tiny glimpse she had before she turned her head away in embarrassment, with all the shadows in the room doing wonderful things to his god-like body and his perfectly-sized dick. Her breathing shallow and her heartbeat so accelerated that she immediately felt sick, Claire swallowed hard at the sight of her dear brother, completely naked, trained, strong and big. Chris remained oblivious to her struggles not to stare at his parts, and, grunting, he swung backwards, dropping into the cushions, wasted and uncleaned. Claire woke too late from her daydream to catch his arm or keep him from falling.

"No, no, no, no, no," she cried when Chris pulled on the covers and disappeared underneath, her vague attempts to stop him in vain. When she managed to sigh her conscience through the assimilation of the lost battle, Chris was long snoring. Heavy like a rock, he wouldn't be easy to move, she knew, and was as grateful for it as she was disappointed, because she'd been so close to touching him.

"What the fuck, Claire?"

She cried, the filthy thought of her unallowed fantasies stinging deep, and she chided herself for taking advantage of such an awful situation. Chris was suffering, and all she had in mind was his body and how she had missed her chance to grope him. Pressing her palms onto her face, Claire began to sob quietly, her dull weeping joining the music of Chris' rhythmic snoring. She cried for the sadness of the moment, for the soul of Jill Valentine and what remained of it in the heart of Chris Redfield. Fate had shown its ugliest face when it had taken Jill from him, that much she knew by only seeing the pitiful shape her brother was in, and she spoke a silent, ungodly prayer to whatever deity would listen to it. Happy that he was finally resting, Claire softly caressed his temple and placed a kiss onto it before turning back to the clothes on the floor.

She would wash them, so he could start the new day in clean clothes as the rest of his belongings were still in the dismantled B.S.A.A. tents and probably on a truck or plane on their way back home.

* * *

More bothered by the heat that radiated from his body than by the smell of alcohol and cold smoke on him, Claire had laid down next to Chris, accepting the torture as a welcome punishment for all the sins she had committed in the past. After tossing and turning for a while, she eventually gave up on the idea of finding sleep that night, willing to watch over Chris until the break of dawn, but just as the thought had settled in her exhausted mind, she felt herself unable to stand the heavyweight of her eyelids any longer and allowed herself to slip into dreamless slumber.

She was woken by the sound of a memory.

When she opened her eyes, she wasn't in the hotel room anymore, carried instead to a very well-known and very much hated bedroom she had found herself in in a long-forgotten past. It was the bedroom she and Chris had been sharing on the upper floor of their grandparents' home, a dusty place in a spooky house that creaked whenever one as much as moved a finger in it. Looking around to rid herself of the veil of sleepiness, she found Chris sitting on the dark carpet in the middle of the room, cross-legged, shaking and surrounded by the darkness of the new moon, and she understood that the shivers that were running through his body were too intense to belong to the rhythmic up and down of a breathing body.

He was crying.

"Chris," she whispered, uncovering herself and jumping out of her bed to dash towards her brother. "Chris!"

Chris had always been strong for her, not allowing himself to shed a tear when he'd been holding her hand during the tragedy that had visited their family, so his sister had someone to look up to, someone who was strong enough to guide her and help her through the pain the loss had caused. Not even when they'd put their parents' caskets into the ground in front of them had he cried, never letting the sadness surface beyond that hint of glossy shimmer in his eyes. That night on the bedroom floor, though, he was crying so desperately that it broke her heart.

It was the moment she understood that her brother was as fragile, vulnerable and human as she herself was, and it couldn't have made her feel any closer to him.

He was holding the picture of their parents, the family portrait that all the adults had been praising during the ceremony, claiming they had been such a beautiful little family and what a shame it was that James and Anne-Claire had passed away so young. His hands looked so small when they were clinging to the dark frame, his whole figure bending over the picture and the memory it brought along.

"They're gone, Claire," he sobbed. "I still can't believe they're gone."

Flashes of headlights swept into the room, and she wasn't standing in the cold, dark bedroom in their grandparents' house anymore. She was in that hotel room in Budapest, with that tiny bed wrapped in thin sheets and the stench of tobacco filling the air, but the object of her attention was the same.

"Chris," she whispered, just like she had done it that night in 1987.

He was in the same pitiful posture, seated on the carpeted floor, with the picture of their parents in his hands, brushing the glass with his fingertips as he whimpered softly. He must have dug it out of her backpack, searching for what? Smokes, maybe? She didn't know. She didn't even remember why she had packed the goddamn picture when she could have perfectly left it on her fucking nightstand. A thick knot rose into her throat as she sank to her knees in front of her brother, her eyes already teary from the pain in him. And when he turned the shady blue of his eyes to her, she wasn't even paying attention to his nudity anymore, as the darkness inside him menaced with consuming them both. His features broke under the impact of his hurting frown when the sobs increased.

"I miss them so much."

Her face as red and moist with tears as his, Claire dropped forward and threw her arms around his body. She held him like he had held her so often before.

"I know," she howled as she kissed his bearded cheek. "I miss them too."

And Chris slung his right arm around her, letting her push her body against his toned chest and feel the warmth of his smooth skin underneath. Nuzzling her neck, he howled his grief against her skin, as Claire tried to keep them both from collapsing onto the floor.

"How am I going to make it without her, Claire?" he cried with a broken grunt in his voice. "How am I going to do this?"

And she wished she had a valid answer to offer him.

_It's funny. When Jill left him in 1997, I told him there were other girls waiting for him, girls who wouldn't fear the danger of the field or outer judgements, but that night in Budapest I understood that there was no one—no one—who could ever replace Jill Valentine in his life._

_If I had been the author of this story, I would have done anything to swap places with the allegedly dead body in the abyss, only to see Chris happy again._

* * *

**Thank you all so much for reading and please forgive the delay. All our gratefulness to Corpasite, who checked this chapter o make sure you can enjoy it.**


	4. Leon

Did anyone ask for smut?

* * *

_It was a hard time, those weeks, or months after Jill's death, you know? Chris… he was the one who suffered the most, for sure. I had never seen him so depressed and distraught, but that's obvious, isn't it? He hadn't just lost the woman he loved, he was also carrying the guilt of getting her killed, and wherever he went, whatever he did, everything seemed to remind him of Jill and how it should have been him who died in Hungary. _

_I was terrified, to be honest. I knew he wouldn't hurt himself beyond all the drinking, which was bad enough, it's true, but we all know my brother isn't the kind of man who puts a barrel to his head or who jumps off the rooftop. He's too stubborn to give up fighting, and that was exactly what worried me, you know? He started going on every mission available, was always the first to volunteer for suicide-assignments if he believed they were in any way related to the Spencer Estate or Jill, and it kept him constantly traveling across Europe. _

_What did I do about it? There was nothing I could really do. Chris picked a fight with anyone who as much as mentioned Jill's death, unable to admit that she wasn't going to come back, with only very few days of clear thinking. The day we cleaned her apartment was such a day, I remember. Chris had gotten wind of the B.S.A.A.'s plans to remove all possible compromising files and documents Jill could have stored at her place before the landlord would claim his property, and insisted he wanted to do it himself, fearing that anyone could take and misuse her belongings _.

* * *

"Sure, come in. We've been waiting for you."

Having been the kind of woman who preferred being practical and sticking only to the most essential, it was no surprise that Jill had rather few belongings stored in her apartment. There were clothes, some personal hygiene items, and food, stuff a normal human being needed to survive, dress, and live something like a normal life. She didn't have any exotic dresses in her wardrobe and no fancy artwork styled up the walls of her place. The only things that could have given away who lived in that apartment were her computer and equipment, a lot of paperwork, some books and, of course, the piano, which stood in the dining room instead of a table.

"It's right here," Claire told the older man whose name she had already forgotten and patted the cover. "You can have a look at it. The price is negotiable. I'm just going to get my brother."

The man nodded and, as he angled his head down to inspect the instrument, Claire turned away and walked into the bathroom, where Chris was supposed to be dismantling the small shelves he had once screwed to the wall himself. All of Jill's belongings could be carried away in five or six boxes and would surely find a nice place in Chris' bedroom, where he could always have the memory of his partner nearby. That had been his wish. He didn't want to forget her smell, he had said, so the pain over her loss couldn't compete with his longing to hold onto her, but the piano was too big for his apartment even if he threw out the rest of his furniture, and so they had agreed they would sell it. Her heart plunged into her bowels when she pushed the door to the bathroom open, because instead of the screwdriver and shelf, Chris was holding the bracelet with the distinctive charm in his hand, hypnotized by the picture of the chain that dangled between his fingers and with his face marred with a darker shade than the one he'd been wearing the previous weeks.

"Chris," she whispered as she watched him in exasperation, knowing that the concentrated stare on his face pointed out some sort of revelation. "The buyer is here."

He sighed, one hand searching the border of the sink for support.

"That piano meant everything to Jill, Claire," he said as his bloodshot eyes turned to her with the intention to sting her soul. "I can't sell it."

Claire's tense chest dropped as she released the breath she was holding, tired of the constant arguments she and her brother had had over Jill's belongings and, especially, the piano. Chain in his right hand, Chris walked towards the door at a challengingly slow pace.

"Chris, we talked about this," the redhead muttered, standing in the frame like a guardian to block his way out. "What are you going to do with it? There's no room in your apartment."

Chris scoffed, gently pushing her shoulder to make her move, but Claire refused to react before she got an answer.

"We can bring it to Mom and Dad's house," he eventually said.

Their parents' house. The old building where they'd lived together when they had still been a happy family, and later the years between their grandfather's death and Claire's departure to college. Neither of them had really wanted to go back to their old hometown after the summer of 1998, though, as it lay barely far enough from the borders of Raccoon City not to get nuked along with it.

"Are you sure?" she asked, with her voice low and her eyebrows curling into a frown. "This is going to cause some extra costs."

Chris shook his head.

"Whatever it takes, Claire," he said and looked down at the jewelry in his palm. "It's Jill's."

He forced a smile as his look turned back to her.

"I will have to take care of her stuff until she comes back."

_It's not like he really believed she was still alive, I think. It was just his own way to deal with her death, pretending that she was just on a trip somewhere and planning an answer to the question of what would have been. It made it easier for him to handle the guilt, but he knew very well that she wouldn't just crawl out of the canyon in Hungary and come back to him. That's what we expected, at least, but, as I said before, he wasn't making it easy to take him for sane. _

_And that's how things had become. If Jill had already been a huge part of our life before, now she was just everywhere. With her stuff in his apartment, there was no door you could open without finding her clothes or a weapon or her toothpaste lying around somewhere. Imagine that, he even kept her toothpaste. It was so sad. And it was incredibly hard to see that Jill Valentine had become so big in Chris' life that her death had swallowed a part of him. _

_I already mentioned that he went on one mission after another, didn't I? Yeah. After emptying Jill's place, we barely met, as he was either locked in his apartment with the ghost of Jill or fighting monsters in Europe. _I need to do this, Claire _, he always said, expected me to understand and shut up and he didn't even care to call me anymore. _

_I spent Christmas alone that year. _

Her high-heeled foot tapped anxiously over the floor to the rhythm of the repetitive disco music they were being tortured with. Leaned against one of the high tables, with a hard drink in one hand, she watched the crowd swing happily into the year 2007 while all _she _could think of was how much longer she would have to stand the New Year's party before crawling back into the dark hole her apartment had become. Her look dropped to the little gold watch on her wrist to see that she had to stand an entire hour more before she would be free again. Not even sober could she have explained why she'd promised Lindsay she'd stay until midnight or why she had accepted her coworker's invitation to that party in the first place.

Probably because she hadn't known that the tiny party with friends and colleagues would take place in one of those large ballrooms with the rest of the population of New York that hadn't found a spot at Times Square. Her colleagues were having a great time, she noticed as she saw the receptionists make close contact with two guys from R+D, giving the rest of the attending employees a good reason to howl in exaltation. Claire sighed quietly. She could almost hear the gossip they'd exchange once they'd return to the office on Tuesday.

A bored hand reached for the phone in her purse, pressing the buttons in hope to find a distraction from the pitiful event. Nothing. No new messages. Not even from Chris. Especially not from Chris. Her brother was on a mission somewhere in Germany, trying to catch some minor bio weapon dealer when nobody— not even the European soldiers— had wanted to sacrifice the holidays to pursue such an _unimportant _subject, claiming that they had no evidence they were actually in possession of a virus. The mere rumor had been reason enough for Chris to go, though, and she hadn't heard of him since his departure. She hadn't even received a reply to her New Year's wishes some hours before, when 2007 had started in his current time zone. It wasn't really surprising, but that didn't make it less painful.

Someone threw an arm around her shoulders and made her jump. When she turned her head to the left, she met the face of a very drunk Lindsay Adams, head secretary of Terra Save, and Claire's best friend among her colleagues in her free time.

"You should dance," the blonde howled, blowing a wave of stinky breath into Claire's face. "There are so many good-looking guys here."

The redhead snickered in response, her look waving towards the already drunk crowd and trying to make some sense of their clumsy swinging.

"I'm still finishing this here," she said lifting her glass. "I wouldn't want to spill my drink."

Lindsay shrugged and patted her shoulder.

"Fine," she breathed and took a seat next to her friend. "Are you okay? You don't enjoy the party, do you?"

It was obvious, wasn't it? If not by the face she was making, people could easily tell by the way she moved, spoke and drank that this wasn't how she had wished to spend the last night of 2006, and that she was toying with the idea of locking herself in the restrooms until midnight had passed and she could say that she had spent her New Year's Eve among people. Claire forced a laugh and shook her head, though. Telling Lindsay the truth would have made her feel bad and she didn't want to offend her friend, as she was the only one at Terra Save who was really looking after her. Also, the alternative that was waiting for her back home in the shape of a lonesome ice cream tub and rum wasn't very alluring either.

"I do," she said with the most reaffirming tone and elbowed her friend in the side, almost throwing the waggly blonde off the chair. "I'm just waiting for a message from my brother."

Lindsay nodded slowly, aware of Chris' condition and his reckless need for adventure now that his love life lay in shambles.

"He's still mourning, Claire," she growled as a shaky finger seemed to point at her own good advice. "Give him time."

Time, yes, that was what she told herself, too; that it would get better and that Chris would be back to normal soon, that he'd see how he would miss Jill a little less every day and that, maybe, he'd find love again. Claire's stomach hurt at the mere thought of having to face another Jill Valentine in Chris' life, but if it made her brother happy, it was indeed what she hoped for.

"Thanks Lindsay."

Feeling the tears stand in her eyes, Claire decided she'd check the snacks they were offering before her friend would notice how much the thought hurt her, and she excused herself and her drink with a short, "I'll be right back."

They had a wide range of colors on those large trays. From danger red to toxic blue, the canapes seemed to imitate a rainbow or a drug trip and Claire could almost taste the food coloring on the tip of her tongue when she just approached the long table. After scrutinizing the selection, she decided to go for some green paste on toast and grimaced in disgust when the excessively salty and sour bit invaded her mouth. After grabbing one of the tiny napkins she elegantly spat the barely-chewed piece into the paper and slid it into the trash can next to the table. She was just thinking about having another drink to flush the taste out of her mouth when she heard the sound of familiar laughter behind her. She turned around, surprised by the view of a certain blond.

"Leon?"

"Thanks," he said, pointing at the canapes. "Now I know which one to skip."

The giggle she let out must have really amused him, as he kept laughing along with her until she pulled him into her hug.

"What are you doing here, Leon?" she asked as they let go of each other. "I didn't even know you were in the country and now you're in New York?"

"I'm here because of work," he said, pointing at a corner not far from them, where a group of people in dark clothes were catching the attention of all the attendees around them. "Had to escort the President's daughter to her New Year's Eve Party."

Claire's eyes widened in surprise as she spotted Ashley Graham herself, surrounded by five or six giants in black suits and sunglasses that stood cross-armed around their target.

"When did you get back to being the bodyguard of the President's family?" she asked in awe as she turned back to her friend, surprised when she caught him slurping the Scotch a waiter had just brought him. "Hey! Aren't you on duty?"

Leon scoffed loudly into the glass and sent some sprinkles into his own face.

"Ashley doesn't need any more bodyguards," he said with a head shake after wiping his chin. "No, my job is to bring her here and to take her back home." A soft shrug underlined his last words. "Which means that, until six a.m., I am free."

She stared at him in confusion, wondering what kind of imbecile took care of the schedules for the employees of government agencies and she fairly hoped they hadn't let him drive. It would mean that someone was trying to get the President's daughter killed.

"That makes no sense at all."

He just shrugged at her statement and muttered, "When has my job ever made sense?"

"Fair enough."

She hadn't believed the night could improve in any way, but the unforeseeable chance of finding Leon in that hell full of feigned happiness, problems drowned in alcohol, and New Year's resolutions which were bound to fail on January second raised her mood so easily that she excitedly took another of the disgusting canapes. She regretted her act of enthusiasm almost immediately, as the piece tasted like she expected: cold and sweaty feet.

"So, any plans?" she asked as she scrubbed the food off her tongue and made Leon laugh again before he shrugged.

"Not really, but I thought that my red-haired friend could introduce me to some cute girls."

She blinked in thought and turned her head to the dancefloor, where Lindsay and three other colleagues were currently busy shaking the frustration of the ending year out of their bodies and the dollar bills out of the wallets of the men around them. She smiled at the image and huffed.

"I think cute girls are sold out tonight," she said with a shrug. "But if a bored redhead is enough to keep you from killing yourself, I'll be glad to keep you company."

Leon smirked and raised his drink.

"It's worth a try" he huffed and clinked his glass against hers.

"So, how have you been?" Claire asked to start a stimulating conversation. "We haven't seen each other since..."

Since the day the news of Jill Valentine's death had interrupted their time at the beach resort; since she had gotten onto a plane and flown to Europe; since she had found out that Chris didn't want to be Chris anymore if there was no Jill to support him. Leon nodded sadly as though he was able to read her mind.

"I know," he mumbled and blew out a comforting breath. "Everything fine on my end. No major complications since Harvardville, but you probably know that."

Claire smirked. Yes, whenever there was an outbreak in the country, Terra Save would immediately know about it. Their work was still gaining recognition but they were slowly being accepted as a powerful front in the fight against bioterror, even though a passive one.

"Yes, I know."

She saw Leon eye the dancefloor, caught between curiosity and irritation, before he emptied his glass and slammed it onto the table next to them.

"Don't you want to go somewhere else?" he asked, as innocently as only he could ask. "My hotel is nearby."

That had been quick, admittedly, and had the invitation come from anyone other than Leon Kennedy she would have felt slightly annoyed by how fast they would have wanted to take her to bed without even buying her one of those expensive drinks at the party first. However, she knew how much her friend hated agglomerations and it didn't surprise her that he wanted to leave the crowd partying alone. She laughed loudly.

"I wish I could, but I promised my colleague to stay until midnight," she said with a sad grimace on her face as she tried to find Lindsay again, spotting the blonde a little later in a corner with her arms around the neck of a stranger and her tongue searching for something she seemed to have lost in his mouth. Claire laughed sarcastically and rubbed over her forehead. "Nevermind, she won't miss me."

She hooked her arm into Leon's and the two friends started walking away, leaving the other attendees alone with the pitiful rest of the year 2006.

* * *

The night was cold, all cabs were taken, and Claire seriously regretted having chosen the tiny black dress and high heels instead of her warm sweatpants and sneakers for the New Year's Eve party, as the wind didn't find any obstacle in the long coat she had chosen to wear over her outfit that night and quickly laid its freezing hands onto her thighs. She shivered slightly as she walked down the street next to Leon who wrapped his arm around her shoulder from time to time and tried to rub some warmth into her body.

"We'll be there soon," he said while he held her. "It's just around the corner."

That was the best thing she had heard that night and she couldn't stop herself from jumping up and down both in excitement and to warm herself up.

"Awesome," she said and went back to what had been distracting her from the cold and her torturous thoughts of Chris. "So… you were telling me about Angela."

Leon sighed, making it evident that he had hoped she would have forgotten about the detail that he and the S.R.T. member had gone _diving _together and that she wanted him to finally confess what dirty sex practices _diving _was referring to.

"You're one stubborn little girl, Claire Redfield," he muttered and kept walking. "Fine, so we were in that WilPharma facility, running from Curtis… No, wait, wasn't that afterwards?"

Narrowed eyes tried to help him concentrate and actually remember what had happened when, where and with whom, and Claire frowned at the image of the struggling Agent.

"Skip the boring stuff, Kennedy, I want hot details!" She pushed herself against him like a cat seeking attention. "I promise I won't tell your boss."

He laughed out loudly and accelerated their pace.

"You'll be disappointed," he said and cleared his throat. "Something exploded and there was that huge wave of fire coming directly at us. I had to act quickly or we would have been roasted, so I grabbed Angela and jumped into some sort of water tank. Dunno, it was the only exit I saw."

Claire nodded, listening with interest.

"What happened next?"

Leon grunted and ran his thumb over his lower lip.

"I knew I had taken her by surprise and that she hadn't gotten time to breathe before falling into the water," he explained with an eager nod. "So I tried to give her air."

The pause he made was enough for Claire to know that he hadn't been casually carrying an oxygen tank with him and, pointing at her lips, she asked, "you tried to give her air?"

His lip twitched deliciously as he shrugged.

"Yes."

The shrill giggle she sent out into the night was just a tiny hint of the joy she was currently feeling. Had she known, though, that the story wasn't over yet, she would have saved that reaction for a little later.

"So that's what she called diving?" She shrieked. "Why would she want to do _that _again?"

Leon, visibly uncomfortable, rolled his tongue over his teeth and cleared his throat once more.

"That's not all," he said and turned to Claire's widely open eyes. "She must have misread my intentions."

The redhead sucked in a short breath and whispered, barely audibly, "what did she do?"

After a twitch of an eye and a weird move of his head, Leon took a deep breath and pointed at his lips.

"She stuck her tongue into my mouth."

Claire nearly stumbled and fell when she stopped walking abruptly while Leon kept pulling her after him, when they two came to stop after a short hiss from the redhead and faced each other, she blinked at him, baffled with the news.

"What?" It was all she could say.

Leon shrugged and lazily tilted his head to the side.

"I have that thing that makes women lose it, it seems."

Claire barely had time to mouth a silent _Oh my god _before they heard cheerful screams, laughter and music along with New Year's wishes coming from all around. Leon pulled out his phone and a quick glance seemed to confirm what the whole world was already screaming at them.

"It's midnight," he mouthed and laughed, while Claire had already pulled out her phone herself. "Happy New Year."

The screen remained empty, she noticed with disappointment, and a part of her wished she could go home now and cry over the fact that her brother wasn't responding to her messages, but that would have been unfair toward the man who had been keeping her company in that sad night between two years. She sighed softly and looked back at the blond.

"Happy new Year, Leon."

Her heart jumped when the phone in her hand began to vibrate and a private number was calling, and hadn't she known that it was Sherry, using Derek Simmons' phone to wish her all the best for the New Year, she would have believed it was Chris. But talking to Sherry was almost as good as talking to her brother— maybe even more.

"Sherry?" when she said the girl's name as she pushed the device to her ear, Leon's eyes widened. The agent hadn't been able to speak to her since 1998, and the fact that the girl he'd once saved was so close seemed to wake a feeling of curiosity in him. "Happy New Year."

"_ Happy New Year, Claire _," Sherry said happily. " _I don't have much time, you know? _"

Claire nodded, her eyes set on Leon's face.

"I know," she whispered. "That's why I'd like you to quickly speak to someone. Be nice. He's not used to your fiery character."

Although Leon shook his head almost fearfully when she pushed the phone to his ear and threatened to drop it if he didn't hold it himself, a smile began to blossom soon on his lips when he greeted the girl.

"Hey Sherry," he whispered softly. "It's me. Leon. Happy New Year."

Claire watched her friend as he spoke to their protegee, so youthful, calm and happy like she had never seen him before, and the kind-hearted spirit he suddenly showed reminded her of the officer she'd met in Raccoon City. The socially retarded boy who had flirted with her when he should have opened a gate, the worried friend who had left notes for her all across the R.P.D. and its sewers, and the handsome young man who had kissed her pain away when she couldn't sleep after they had escaped the city of the dead, he was still alive; buried under loans of lame puns and gallons of Scotch; but still there. That New Years' Eve in the streets of New York, Claire noticed that she had missed him.

"It's okay, yes, you'll see each other next week," he said with his look drifting to Claire as he shrugged apologetically, a gesture meaning that Sherry was already hanging up. He lowered the phone and ended the call before handing the device back to his friend as he said, "I just hope Simmons doesn't find out about this."

Claire shook her head.

"She's very smart and he is not," she said with a laugh as she pushed her phone into the pocket of her coat. "How are you?"

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

"I'm alright," he said as he looked back at her. "Thank you, Claire. I think I needed this."

Her warm breath left her mouth in the shape of a vaporous sigh as she walked towards him and slung her arms around his torso, leaning her head against his chest to give Leon the chance to put his chin on top of it. They stood there for a minute or two, just listening to each other's breathing and the joyful parties that had reached their climax somewhere in the distance, until Claire loosened her grip and pulled back to look into his eyes.

"You're welcome," she said and planted a tiny New Year's kiss onto his lips, a peck as innocent and sweet as their relationship had always been. They were friends whose thoughts were always with each other, who remembered birthdays and other important dates, who would always be there when the other needed them. "Happy New Year."

Just that, good friends who would never ask for anything other than friendship.

The more surprised she was when she caught herself wanting to kiss him again, wetly and deeply, like that night after Raccoon City where only her clumsy fingers drilling into the wound on his shoulder had stopped them from getting further. Leon didn't move, exhaling deeply through his nostrils as his lips pressed together uncomfortably. He swallowed, and Claire believed to catch his eyes jumping to her lips every now and then.

She couldn't stand the tension. With her heart hammering as loudly in her chest as a drumroll to push her to act, Claire brought her lips closer to his again, and trusting that Leon would stop her if she went too far, she hovered over his mouth until only fractions of an inch remained between them, inviting him to make the next move. He did. Claire could hear her pulse in her ears when the agent started rubbing suggestively over her back with his two palms, and it nearly exploded when he closed the distance between them again, making their lips meet in another soft kiss. It was just another loving peck like the one before, only that this time they didn't stop after just one, brushing each other's lips with their own, as carefully as though they could die electrocuted if they touched for too long.

She hadn't been aware that they were still staring at each other with their eyes wide open while their lips were touching, which was awkward and creepy even if it was just a sign of caution and care. Claire closed her eyes and angled her head slightly to the side, beginning to focus on the round bottom lip of her friend, sucking it gently between her two lips to savor him better. It seemed to be the sign for Leon to open his mouth to her as she felt the tip of his tongue brush her upper lip. As soon as his hand reached up and cradled her neck, she tightened her loop around his body and let her mouth drop open to him, something he took advantage of quickly and shamelessly, as his tongue began to dig for hers.

She wondered if she had ever been kissed like that. Leon was dominant in his moves and touches, in the way he sucked in her complete awareness, but she didn't feel controlled, but guided. He was taking the lead in such a warm and pleasant way that she would gladly follow him wherever he took her and she felt her knees weaken when he caught her tongue between his teeth. A soft moan escaped her lips when the blond moved his attention to the corner of her mouth, her jawline and her ear as his strong grip turned her head to the side. After softly nibbling on her earlobe, he blew out a breath in the shape of a hot whisper.

"Will you come to my room with me?"

Her eyes opened as her tongue flicked over the soft smile that spread across her face. That had been the original plan, hadn't it? Snacks, drinks and TV in _his room _. She turned to look at him, meeting the lustfully curious expression he had given her that night in the motel room outside Raccoon, and which she hadn't seen since then. It was dangerous, wasn't it? They worked well as friends, the mere thought of crossing the forbidden line would be a mistake. Now that they weren't just thinking but _running _towards that line at a nauseating pace, she wasn't sure if they were ready for that.

"Yes."

There was just one way to find out.

Leon grinned victoriously as he hastily flicked a thumb over her chin and took her by the hand. They were only a few steps away from the entrance of the hotel where he had his room booked and just as they walked through the rotating glass doors with golden decoration, Claire noticed that her friend had, once more, checked into one of the most expensive places to stay in the city.

"Wow," she breathed as she stumbled after Leon through the empty hall, and the agent chuckled. They came to stop in front of the elevator doors which carried more gold than Claire could have bought with the income of her entire lifetime, and she anxiously tapped her feet onto the ground, keeping her eyes steady on her reflection in the golden sliding doors, as neither of them dared look at the other in fear they could change their mind.

The doors slid open and they walked into the cabin, where Leon pushed the button to the eleventh floor, and the knot in Claire's throat had time to grow immensely thick before the doors shut them out of the world's sight again. What was she doing there and did she really want to go that far? Before she could come up with a logical answer, affirmative or negative, the doors rushed closed and Leon, with the fast and silent move of a ninja, reached for her waist, causing her to pirouette into his grip, and kissed her so hard that it stole all her doubts and her breath. Claire stumbled backwards, Leon after her, and when her back crashed into the wall of the cabin and she automatically looped her arms around his shoulders, she felt his hand slide down the curve of her waist and hips down to her thighs, raising her left leg until he took hold of her knee. With his mouth indelicately devouring hers in wide moves and strong twirls of his tongue, Leon took the chance to grope her breast through the fabric of her silken dress, and chuckled devilishly at the revelation that she wasn't wearing a bra. Rolling her nipple in between two fingers, he released a moan from her lips.

"I always wanted to do this," he breathed against her mouth, and just as her eyes opened to meet his, he let go of her, putting her foot ungently back onto the ground as he turned to the elevator doors, as serene and composed as if they hadn't been groping the shit out of each other just a second earlier, and she hated him a little for his attitude, as she herself felt she was about to pass out.

He held her hand, somehow promising that he wouldn't let her fall, and when the doors slid open and an older couple tottered into the cabin, he pulled her into the corridor and straight towards room 1123. Claire dropped against the wall next to the door as Leon pushed the keycard hastily into the slot on the lock.

"Fuck!" he cursed as it resisted to open.

Claire chuckled, rolled herself into his arms along the line of the wall and placed a tiny, but hungry kiss onto the corner of his mouth as her hand reached for the keycard.

"Patience, Mister Kennedy. Some things want to be treated with care," she whispered seductively as she slid the card into the lock with a slow, targeted move. It clicked open at the first try. "Unlike me, by the way."

That promise of hers made him chuckle, and as soon as the door was opened, he slung his arm around her waist again and they staggered into the room with their mouths tightly pressed onto one another and their hands in so far unexplored places. Her coat and his jacket were gone quickly, discarded and tossed to the floor, and they didn't even care to turn any lights on. Claire's hands fisted his hair and pulled it, ripping a delicious cry of pleasure from his lips as he pressed her against the next best wall and his hands resumed their way down her body. His left groped her breast, his right moved under her skirt, and the bulge in his pants made so many promises that she couldn't keep herself from reaching for his parts and massaging him through the pants.

"Oh," he groaned, his fingers rushing up to her jaw as he broke the kiss.

He looked at her from heavy-lidded eyes as he cupped her face in both hands and Claire froze on the spot. He had the most beautiful eyes she had ever seen so closely, she thought and swallowed before trying to lean into him again, thirsty for his taste. Leon, however, held her back and chuckled. Lowering his hands, he quickly hooked his index fingers into the straps of her dress and pulled them over her shoulders, easing the robe down her body and letting it drop to the floor just a second later. There she stood in front of him, only in her panties and shoes, and she was as aroused as she was mad that he was still fully dressed. He took his time to look at her in the dim lights, with his lips curving a proud smirk and his finger drawing an imaginary line from her shoulder to her breast, where the tip of it circled her nipple and caused her to gasp shallowly.

"Wow," he whispered and looked into her eyes again, and Claire just didn't want to wait any longer. She grabbed his collar, turned him around and pushed him into the wall on the same spot where she had been standing until now, and she pressed her mouth against his as she ripped the hem of his shirt up, breaking the kiss once more only to rid him of the garment and tossing it to the floor next to her dress. His skin was warm, the muscles underneath hard and strong, and she wanted to touch and taste every single spot on his perfect body, but before her hands could engage again in the unbuckling of his belt, Leon caught her waist and thigh and pulled her back into his grip, Claire wincing in shock. Once she was settled in his hands, with her legs tightly wrapped around his hips, she kissed him again, deep and hungrily, until she feared he would run out of air, faint and drop her.

Their lips parted with a smacking sound of lust and he glanced at her face again.

"Bedroom?" he asked and it was only then when Claire noticed that the humble hotel room her friend was staying in was actually bigger than her entire apartment.

"Bedroom," she breathed and caught his lips again as Leon began to carry her through the room.

Drowning in the depth of his kisses, she paid little attention to her surroundings until he dropped her to the mattress, and with a cold hand on his stomach she stopped him from climbing onto her. The lifted eyebrow of his was the gesture that completed the question if she was having second thoughts.

She wasn't. She wanted to take her time and stare at him the way he had been staring at her before, memorizing all his curves and lines of perfection in the weak light of the night sky. To ease his concerns, she gave him one of her naughtiest smirks, which he mirrored instantly. He held still as she undid his belt and zipper and his eyes fell shut when she pulled on his waistband and pushed her hand into his boxer briefs again, taking his length into her palm and stimulating him. Claire bent over to lick his stomach and chuckled against his toned body when she found out that he tasted as good as he looked. A deep-throated groan was released when she finally managed to pull his boxer briefs down and Claire discovered how wrong she had been all this time, assuming that she could easily resist the picture of him. He was perfect, she thought and licked her lips as she considered taking him into her mouth, her hand beginning to stroke him. Leon's head fell back in pleasure. She laughed, loving his reaction at her touch, until he looked back at her and pushed her ungently onto the bed, being on top just a second later. While his mouth searched for her neck and jaw, torturing the silken skin with kisses, bites and the soft scratches of a lovely five o'clock shadow, his fingers pulled on her panties until they came apart in his hands.

Goddamnit, she wanted him.

Leon leaned back and grabbed his pants again, and Claire saw that he was targeting the condom in his pocket. He didn't waste any time, she noticed and was actually relieved that he wouldn't make her wait any longer. Once the wrapper was ripped open, he pushed the latex over his length and smiled at her before grabbing her legs and stretching them over her head to leave her in a very shameful pose.

"Last chance to say no," he whispered and placed himself behind her butt. "Are you sure you want this?"

She began to laugh and couldn't stop. How did you say no to Leon Kennedy once he was naked, rock hard, and kneeling behind you with his dick pointing at you? She cleared her throat to find her voice again.

"I think I've never wanted anything so badly."

Okay, that was a lie, but a white one. The way his tongue flicked over his upper lip told her that he felt just the same, and he took the chance to caress her thighs lovingly before eventually grabbing his dick and pushing the tip of it into her. One wink, one moan and one second later, he was buried deep inside of her. She cried out when Leon pressed her knees farther down and pushed himself into her boiling heat as deep as she could take it, bending her as if he wanted to break her in two. He began to move and it was glory. Fast and skilled, he fucked like he hadn't done anything else in his whole life — and people said he was good with a gun. People were stupid by nature.

Claire opened her eyes to look at him, a glance that connected them on a new, different level. It was in every move and touch of his, the knowledge of how to make a woman feel special, and Claire chuckled and moaned as a short spasm ran through her body.

"Good?" The blond asked; unnecessarily, as he already knew the answer.

Claire nodded. "Oh god, yes!" She lifted her upper body and showed how flexible she was by flinging her arm around his neck and pulling him closer, making their mouths meet in another passionate kiss. As he kept moving inside of her happily, he caught one of her breasts and rolled it in his palm as the other one bounced to his thrusts.

"Faster," she gasped against his lips. "Please."

Like the loyal friend he was, he did as he'd been asked, diving into her as fast, hard, and deep as he could and causing their bodies to make funny plunging sounds whenever he thrusted into her. Yes, that was how she wanted sex to be; hard, thrilling, a little forbidden; and she felt Leon wouldn't let her walk away without rewarding her with an orgasm — or maybe two.

The blond let go of her knees and pulled back, rolling her over until she lay face down on the bed and leaving her gasping in need. Lifting her ass, he placed himself between her feet and pushed into her again, slowly, torturing her with the wrong pace in the right angle.

"Leon, please," she cried and tried to rock her hips back until she heard his dark chuckle.

He bent down, kissed her temple and shushed her quiet as he took all the time in the world to move back and forth. He was playing with her sanity, testing how far he could push her, or if he could make her beg more, and she hated him for every inch of him that wasn't inside her. Another cry was needed to make him enter her again and increase the pace of his thrusts, and Claire moaned and screamed for him, a little surprised when Leon pinned her shoulders down against the mattress and kept fucking her like he'd die the next day.

"Right there, yes," she heard her own shrieks fill the room, and a pleasant wave of heat surprised her, spreading through her whole body from the core of her into the tips of her toes. "I'm coming." Her hands curled into the blankets, aimlessly searching for support, and started pulling on the fabric. "I'm coming, Leon, don't stop."

He didn't. He kept going and moving and drilling until she stretched and quivered and blasphemed under him. It wasn't until she collapsed in exhaustion and pleasure that he let his own release roll through his perfect body, and his dark groans were the last sound the walls were bound to hear that night.

* * *

It was funny, she thought, that she hadn't thought of Chris again that night; at least not during the act itself, when Leon and she had still been busy on, in, and around each other, each of them with only their pleasure on their mind. Once the orgasm had left her body and her conscience had returned, though, it was inevitable for her to remember her brother, who was lost and broken somewhere in Europe, and the thought of him began to pour the rest of reality back into her head. Claire was still lying on her belly when Leon climbed off of her and left her shivering, her skin reacting to the sudden cold with a dense layer of goosebumps, and she carefully hid under the sheet from the night and the shame nudity brought along.

Had it really happened?

As she mentally went through the previous hour and a half again, from the party to the aftermath, she decided that her aching body and the awkward silence that reigned now between them were proof enough that it had all been very real — too real, perhaps. A part of her expected Leon to doze off rapidly, exhausted from the intense nightly workout and the effect of that one but hard drink he'd had at the party, but when she turned her head to him she found him leaned against the headboard, nervously chewing on his bottom lip after he'd dropped the condom to the floor. A brief moment later, he looked at her and huffed.

"Wow," he whispered again, but it was in no way like the one he had given her before, when it had been the horny little boy who was speaking. Now that the agent had returned, professional and cold, it was an expression of disbelief, of awareness and regret, and it hurt a little to see that she wasn't the only one who didn't feel comfortable about the situation. But what was happening to them? They had known each other for so many years now, and after going through several nightmares together, it would take more than a stupid one-night-stand to break their healthy post-traumatic friendship, wouldn't it?

"So, you have to get back to that party later?" Claire asked in an attempt to break the ice, to which Leon responded with a deep breath before nodding without turning to face her.

"Yes," he said. "Later."

After another weird sigh, Claire hummed.

"Good."

Okay, that had been clumsy, she had to admit, and decided that straight forward was still the thing that best worked for a Redfield.

"You okay?" she asked with a smirk on her face as she turned onto her back and sat upright, moving backward until she leaned against the headboard next to him. "You don't seem very pleased."

Leon reacted with silence as he ran his fingers through his hair, making the following second stretch awfully into a horrible torture.

"Yes," he finally said and turned to her. "I just don't know what to do now, to be honest. This is just usually the moment when I invite the girl to leave."

She shivered, forcing out the anxiety along with a laugh as she turned to him.

"I can go if you want me to."

She felt an uncomfortable weight jump off her heart as she watched him shake his head. Leon turned to the nightstand and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. After pushing a smoke between his lips and lighting it, he added, "I don't want you to go."

As to reinforce his statement, he offered Claire a smoke, which she declined with a grateful wave of the hand, and she was relieved that he wasn't going to kick her out in the middle of the night. She also found it amusing to see he was one of those guys who smoked after sex.

Just as she began to wonder how to keep the uncomfortable silence from spreading again, an embarrassing B.O.W.-like roaring emerged from under the sheets and she quickly pressed her hand onto her belly in a hopeless attempt to stop her stomach from growling. Leon stared at her with widely open eyes.

"Hungry?"

Once the growling had passed, she grimaced apologetically.

"I wasn't going to eat those disgusting snacks at the party."

Something about her words, her looks or the whole situation must have been extremely funny, because Leon started to laugh in a way she had never heard him laugh before and he didn't stop until he lifted the smoke to take a drag and nearly choked trying. He rolled to his side and without putting the cigarette away, he grabbed the phone on the nightstand.

"Hello?" He leaned back against the headboard with the speaker pressed to his ear. "Good night and Happy New Year. This is room 1123. Can I get a couple of cheeseburgers and fries?"

Claire's mouth dropped open as she heard him place the order and hid her face in her hands both out of embarrassment and joy.

"I see, okay. Well, thank you." He sighed sadly and hung up before turning back to her. "They say they don't make cheeseburgers, it has to be filet mignon." Before she could laugh again he added, "so, I ordered two."

The thankful smirk she rewarded him couldn't express how much she really loved him that moment. Even in the weirdest times, when she was stuck on an island, when she didn't know who to speak to, and even when she'd just had tried to fuck up their friendship with sex; Leon always knew how to make her feel better, even when he was close to sprinting out the room without ever looking back. She eyed him.

"Thanks. I will pay for it."

He laughed, his hand waving the subject off.

"Oh no, this is on me," he replied. "I probably should have bought you dinner before this."

She smiled at him, he smiled back and all the ice was finally broken. As her cold hand reached out for his and held it, Claire tried to come up with the right words to ban the silence that threatened them with spinning their heads until they forgot who they were.

"I'm sorry, Claire," he said all of a sudden and she sucked in some air. "I'm not sure if I should have done this. I can't promise..."

And all of a sudden, she was able to see the real problem between them, and it startled her in a way she wouldn't have believed possible. Leon was afraid to hurt her, afraid of a promise he believed to have made and which he wasn't able to keep, and she couldn't remember the last time anyone had behaved so selflessly around her. With a sigh leaving her lips, Claire decided to ease his concern.

"I'm not going to fall in love with you, Leon," she blurted out and caused him to frown. "I'm sorry. I don't want to hurt your pride, but if you fear that this will end up in a complicated relationship full of jealousy and broken hearts, it won't. I know your head and heart are with someone else and…" she stared deeply into his eyes as she sighed. "There's someone else for me, too."

He held her hand tighter as she lowered her head in shame.

"What? A boyfriend?"

Claire shook her head eagerly at the idea that she could have just cheated on someone with him.

"No, that's impossible, unfortunately."

He nodded.

"I see. He's married."

"No."

"Working for Wesker?"

She exhaled deeply and mischievously laughed the shudder away that the name had caused her.

"That's the exclusivity of your relationships, I fear." They exchanged dark glances before she returned to her tale. "He's just not for me, but still, that someone has just been on my mind for a very long time and no matter how hard I try, it won't go away."

It was the same strange addiction that linked him to Ada, controlling most of his thoughts and choices, up to a level where there was no Leon Kennedy without Ada Wong anymore. If there was anyone in the world who would understand her forbidden feelings for Chris, it was Leon. Luckily, he understood without asking questions.

"I had no idea, Claire. And I'm sorry to hear that. You deserve to be with the one you want." He rubbed his chin in thought.

Yes, they both deserved better, and they both deserved worse, because they were a couple of idiots who fell for those they could never have, and they were too broken to change it. Claire sighed.

"Yes, maybe."

After a while, Leon cleared his throat again.

"So, we're cool? We're still the same?"

She took a second to consider the weight of his words, proud of herself that she had guessed his concerns, still a little sad that she wasn't anyone's object of desire but, above all, relieved that she and Leon would remain friends. She eventually shrugged and pursed her lips.

"We're cool," she said, showing him her brightest smile. "But we don't have to stay exactly the same."

Narrowed eyes turned to her.

"Do you mean…?"

Yes, it was exactly what she meant, and it was thrilling to see that Leon had read her mind so easily, highlighting how deep their complicity really went. Removing the sheets and moving a little closer to him, Claire slid a finger up his arm, from the inner of the elbow up to his shoulder.

"I mean that this wasn't bad," she whispered and watched him lick his lips curiously. "And if we can keep it this simple, maybe we could repeat. Occasionally."

A seductive smirk blossomed on his lips and nearly shone like diamonds in the dark.

"Okay," he replied, tossed the smoke into the ashtray on the nightstand and turned back to her, cupping her chin between two fingers as he whispered into her face, "I mean, our friendship was getting kind of boring, anyway, don't you think?"

Claire laughed sarcastically.

"Very funny," she howled and stuck her hand under the sheets to shamelessly grab his dick.

_Yeah, many things changed that night, and it was the beginning of a very intense year._

* * *

**AN**  
Sorry it took so long... again. We still hope you enjoy it! Thanks to all readers, followers and reviewers. Your support makes this all so much more special.  
A huge thank you to Corpasite, who checked this instead of eating... LOL


	5. That light at the end of the tunnel

**_IMPORTANT NOTE_: **_We are splitting the story once more (it's the last time, we swear). This is the **LAST chapter of Family Portrait** **2**, For more updates, like Family Portrait 3, please follow the Twisted Redfield Sisters :) We promise we won't spam you with other stuff than FP :)_

_But for now, have fun with this last chapter. Thank you all for the support. We love you!_

* * *

**That little light at the end of the tunnel**

Just as she had always seen her accidental affair with Wesker as a punishment for her forbidden feelings for Chris, the mutually beneficial friendship with Leon had to be a reward for all the torture she had taken throughout the years. It was, hands down, the best decision she'd ever made, and even though their jobs made it impossible to meet more often than before, their encounters soon became a luxury she wouldn't want to miss ever again. Leon was attentive, imaginative and skilled, and such perfect boyfriend material that it was a pity that he was wasting his talent with someone like her, who would never give him the love he deserved. Admittedly, compared to the actual object of his obsession, Ada Wong, she was almost the perfect housewife. The point was that Leon magically and unexplainably always knew what she needed. He made her feel good about herself, her body and her doings, and when she was with him, even her always-angry mother seemed to look pleased in that frame on her nightstand. Still, Claire turned her away whenever he came around.

"Leon! Leon, what are you doing?"

She had woken up in her bed, naked, with the covers tugged up to her nose and a solid and persistent grasp around her thighs. With intense pedaling of her legs and a scream proper of a damsel in distress, she tried to shake the assaulter off as elegantly as possible. It was hard, though, when the one holding her was a trained, strong government agent, as stubborn and naked as herself, and with his face already nuzzling her parts. When her attempts to press her legs together finally succeeded and she got to pull her knees to her chest, Leon ripped the covers away and frowned at her.

"What the fuck, Claire? You nearly kicked me in the face."

She snorted out a displeased grunt, eyes gesturing downwards.

"What were you doing down there?"

Leon blinked incredulously, and with a gentle tilt of his head to the side he began to laugh, one hand of his scratching over the hairline at the top of his neck. His tongue darted out and moistened the corner of his mouth, preparing to speak.

"A good morning greeting. They call it _cunnilingus_, lick job, going down on you." The smirk on his face grew bigger with every synonym used. "Don't you like it?"

She hesitated, the doubt about letting him see her so closely draining all the lust from her limbs. His beautiful face, with his eyes, nose and mouth, was certainly not something she'd like to see stuffed into her parts, and the timid shrug that caused her shoulder to jump seemed to give away more than she was able to say. With eyes narrowed into thin slots he shook his head.

"Wait. You've never been eaten out?"

Said like that, the idea lost the little remaining romanticism it had. Claire swallowed uncomfortably as Leon huffed out a laugh and began to caress her calf with his right hand.

"That boyfriend of yours was a dick."

He wasn't entirely wrong, of course, even without knowing that said boyfriend had actually been the Captain of Chris' S.T.A.R.S. unit once and was now known as one of the most dangerous terrorists that had ever existed. All Leon knew, though, was that she had learned everything about her sexuality with that _one guy_, as she had confessed to him one night after leaving him dry, causing him to fascinatedly applaud her oral technique.

"Maybe."

Leon pursed his lips and scoffed, his hand still stroking her leg.

"It's me, Claire," he said warmly. "I've seen and been in every spot of you, remember? What can possibly go wrong if I use my tongue this time?"

Claire though, shook her head anxiously, asking, "what if I smell or taste bad?"

The blond rolled his eyes in amused irritation.

"You don't." Playful fingers danced along her leg until they reached her knees, making her loosen up a bit with a targeted grasp, but Claire was still hesitant to let him proceed.

"What if I don't know how to do it?"

Leon laughed so delightfully that it pushed a hint of pink into her cheeks. He propped an arm onto her left knee and looked at her.

"This is not how it works, Claire. The one who has to prove something here is me. I've also been told I'm _not bad_ at it, but I'd trust your opinion better than any other's." With a gentle but firm touch on her shoulder, he pushed her into the pillow and pulled on her legs. "Now relax. Or will you make the same drama the day your crush asks to go down on you?"

She snorted and stuck her tongue out in offence, to which Leon replied with a playful wink. Her _crush_, as the blond had started calling him, wasn't going to do that to her — ever— as they were currently not even speaking unless it was _her _calling _him_. Even if Chris hadn't been completely absorbed by the void of Jill Valentine's past existence, under no circumstance would he have touched his sister, but as Claire watched Leon descend to her sex with tender bites and humid kisses, she couldn't stop herself from imagining it was her brother. Was it wrong to picture someone else when a god-like creature like Leon Kennedy was about to take care of her pleasure all alone?

"Leon?" She called him without making a move, hoping that he wouldn't believe she was still resisting him. The blond looked up and smirked doubtfully.

"Yeah?"

"Do you think of Ada when you're with me?"

A blush of horror popped onto his face when he heard her question, the translation of many irrational fears of complications and commitments that caused his shoulder to twitch into a shy shrug as he began to rub the back of his neck.

"I think of Ada very often," he mumbled ashamed as he gathered the courage to look her in the eyes again. "Yes, I think sometimes even when we're…"

Claire smiled, bending toward him and cutting his words with a kiss on the lips.

"Good," she whispered and leaned back again. "This way I don't have to feel bad if my mind slips away."

A relieved smirk dressed Leon's lips as he disappeared under the covers again. When he gave her spot the first humid stroke, Claire quickly hid the picture of her parents in the drawer of her nightstand.

This was going to get loud and it was best if they didn't see nor hear her.

_It was nearly perfect. Like being with Wesker again, but without the bad teasing and the uncertainty or the unanswered questions. No games. No bad games at least. We were just there for each other, inside and outside of the bedroom, and it seemed to work. It worked so well that people mistook us for boyfriend and girlfriend more than once, which is funny, right? I mean, we never acted any differently in public. Sherry would have been happy had we told her about our encounters, but, of course, we never spoke to anyone about it, not even to her. It was our dirty little secret and it was, somehow, everything I'd always wanted to have, but with the wrong man. I can say that, can't I? It's not a secret anymore. _

_Chris, on his end, kept dedicating every minute of his time to work, secretly searching for Jill, and he barely came home. Barry kept me updated about everything related to him and his missions, because Chris himself never told me anything the rare times he took my calls. It was hard to see him decay like that, without any option to help him. Had there been a chance to break through and reach him, I would have tried, but I knew that any attempt from my side would be rejected, and that, if I wanted to save the little relationship we had, I needed to stay away._

_And so, the months passed by._

* * *

Her heart hadn't stopped pounding during the whole long ride to their hometown, the expectation tickling her nerves awake and causing her to rush over the highways like a lunatic, but it wasn't until she turned into their old street and spotted Chris' car parked next to the sidewalk that she felt fear and anxiety take over the rest of her brain functions. She jumped so fast out of the car and towards the entrance that she completely forgot to lock the vehicle.

"Chris!" she called into the house, afraid of what she would find in there. "Chris!?"

Barry had called her that morning, asking how her brother was dealing with being home. Big news for her, as she had sincerely believed Chris was still abroad— somewhere in South America— and when the older man had reported that Chris had been back home for one motherfucking week already, she had even forgotten to have breakfast. Her brother's apartment was untouched; no suitcase, no signs of life, and everything was still in the same place where she had left it the last time she had come over to clean. If he wasn't at home and he wasn't at work, there was only one place left she could think of, and it was the one thought that had held all of her hope.

She walked through the lower floor of their parents' house, through the area that had once been their living and dining room, with the old couch and the chairs still turned onto the table and the big, see-through plastic covers protecting the furniture from dust. No signs of Chris, though.

Their family home had only been rented out for a few months since they both moved out years ago. When Raccoon City was destroyed, the cute little family who had convinced both Chris and Claire had quickly grabbed all their belongings and left in the middle of the night, without even paying the rent that month. Since then, the place they'd once called a home had stood empty, and Claire shuddered when the smell of dust and old regrets enveloped her, but she had no time to think how often she had _heard _Chris and Jill doing it on the couch or elsewhere in the house. Her brother needed her.

She climbed up the stairs, finding the doors to both her and Chris' old bedrooms open, but no Chris inside. His bed wasn't made, but someone seemed to have slept recently on the sheetless mattress. Tension grasping her tightly, Claire slowly made her way through the corridor and to the master bedroom, a room that had been unused in years as the siblings had tried to avoid it since they'd become orphans. Just as one trembling hand tried to push the door open, the sound of a piano key startled her and Claire rushed into the room.

"Oh, thank god."

Chris was inside, moving and unharmed, seated in front of the piano keys that seemed to make clumsy music for him. Without turning to her, he pushed some of the keys, and Claire sighed in delight when she believed to spot a smile on his face, the first smile she'd seen on him in months.

"Chris," she called again and walked towards him until she could sit next to him on the low bench in front of the instrument. "Hey."

Chris smirked and turned to face her.

"Hey," he replied without interest, but with such a warm expression that it was all Claire could have asked for.

He looked tired and slovenly, hair unkempt and eyes sewed with dry tears. He was only in dark pants that stunk like he had worn them throughout each of his latest missions; shirtless, it took him no effort to draw all of Claire's attention to the little charm he wore on a long gold chain around his neck and which dangled in front of his chest at heart height. Jill was everywhere on him and Claire hated it. Hadn't the ghost of the brunette done enough harm to her brother and herself, even after dying in a freaking canyon? Did she have to keep torturing him when she was long gone?

"How did you…?" There was the noble curiosity of the man who hadn't been aware of how much he had been hurting her with indifference over the past several months. Claire snickered softly at her own thought.

"Barry told me you were back," she whispered in a sad tone not even Chris could ignore, causing his left eye to twitch. He turned back to the piano.

"I'm sorry," he said and sighed as he pressed down one of the white keys. "I wasn't taking it well."

And he still wasn't, she understood as she saw a tiny tear glistening in the corner of his eyes. His entire self was still bathing in Jill's absence, feeding on the grief. Chris looked like he had desisted from sleeping for good, wearing the dark circles under his eyes like solid proof of how much he missed her, but he was stable, receptive and aware, it seemed. Claire reached for his hand and held it in a tight grip between her fingers.

"It's okay, Chris," she replied and leaned her head on his shoulder. "It's okay."

Chris kept hitting one key after another, trying a set of finger moves that allowed him to play something that sounded like real music to her untrained ears. While she kept her temple pressed against him, listening to the little remaining music he had inside, the wish she had rescued his guitar from Raccoon City began to swell in her chest. The tune he was playing was for Jill, undoubtedly. It wore her name like everything about him did, imprinted under the skin like a tattoo, and it hurt to see him pour his soul into someone who wasn't there anymore.

"When are you leaving again?" Claire asked when she couldn't stand the rattling noise anymore and Chris' hand balled into a fist, pressing the keys down.

"I-I…" The words stumbled out of his mouth ineptly. "I've been suspended."

Her head jumped up and spun around to face him, so energetically that her ponytail drew a wide aureole around her head.

"What?"

"Didn't Barry tell you?" he asked in a grunting voice as he rolled his jaw in anger.

Claire sighed. No, Barry hadn't told her about whatever reason the B.S.A.A. had come up with to keep her brother away from the job, but it didn't actually surprise her. After witnessing his treatment towards those who had stood up against him regarding Jill's death; including herself; it had been only a matter of time before he got into trouble.

"What happened?"

He merely groaned in response.

"Johnson is an old bastard. That's what happened."

Claire pouted as her eyes narrowed into slits. There was no doubt that Max Johnson, the conservative successor of Clive O'Brien in the position as B.S.A.A. director, had started a personal witch hunt the day Chris had refused to attend his_ absolutely superfluous_ welcoming ceremony, but after a whole year of insubordination and rebellion against the higher ranks, her brother had most probably _earned _himself that penalty. A touch of solace, tender and warm, crawled up his arm and landed on his shoulder blade and Chris turned his head to the left.

"An old bastard."

The way his lip curved when he spoke, the subtle swearing and the particular width of his open eyes said that time had been doing its magic, and that Chris was indeed, step by step, accepting that life would go on, even without Jill Valentine in it. Claire smirked, dropping a kiss to his shoulder.

"I'm starving. How about pizza?" She suggested and raked a couple of fingers through his dark locks. "Pepperoni?"

The gentle huff of joy he released said more than words could ever speak and Claire felt the soothing warmth of relief spread in her chest as Chris nodded when she said, "and later we can watch one of those lame action movies you enjoy so much."

One joyful leg was swung over the bench as she leaped to her feet, impulsed by the renewed bliss that streamed through her veins. Before she reached the door to the corridor, though, Chris' voice stopped her.

"Claire," he called. With a hand on the handle, she looked back at him, meeting the blue of his irises in the afternoon sun that flooded the master bedroom. "Thank you."

She swallowed, rather bitterly with her heart hammering so hard that she felt the beating of it in her throat, and she couldn't help smiling awkwardly. The explanation Chris offered next didn't make it particularly better.

"For all your help. Without you, I would have never gotten away from that canyon."

Knees weakening, Claire took a tighter hold of the door as she nodded at her brother, forcing down the stinging tears. He was right, she knew he was right, but telling him wouldn't help him.

"It's okay, Chris." Voice loaded with sadness and hope, she gave him the only words she could believe would actually help. "I love you."

Words like those couldn't be considered spoken if there was no one there to receive them. To Claire it felt like months had passed since she'd last said _I love you_, when she'd barely pronounced another word whenever they had talked on the phone. As Chris looked back at her, though, blinking softly and raising his head, she finally felt _heard _again.

"I love you, too."

* * *

There was nothing more effective to cheer up a Redfield than pepperoni pizza, beer and action movies, it seemed, and after classily finishing the second six pack and the third plotless film, Claire even managed to steal a laugh or two from her brother. The night had been weirdly gratifying and after nearly a year of pulling, searching and calling, with a disheartening result, there seemed to be a spark of hope in their life again — even though just a tiny one.

"It's late, Chris" Claire stretched her arms out as a wide yawn deformed her face. Fighting off sleepiness was getting harder and she considered she had been trying for too long to get her brother to get to sleep, wondering if Chris had broken the habit for good. "Don't you want to go to bed?"

The TV poured its light into the room, highlighting the abysmal craters under his eyes, and Claire watched in disbelief how her brother blew out a laugh and shook his head.

"Not yet, Claire bear." The sound of those words sent a shiver down her spine and a frown onto her face. He grabbed his can and swung it around, the gentle lapping of the contents playing a metallic tune for the night. "You go to bed, I'll stay here until I… pass out."

Surprised by his statement, Claire shifted her weight to her knees and crawled toward Chris, stopping only when she had him in her reach so her fingers could rake lovingly through his messy hair.

"Trouble sleeping?" she asked, eyes seriously set on his.

It was obvious, but she wanted to hear it from his own lips, fearing that his senses were still too dazed to admit it. When an ashamed drop of the head followed the subtle nod, she slipped her hand down his chest and around his torso below his arms, and pressed her body against his muscles. He was warm, still as firm and toned as he'd always been, just like she remembered him after studying him for years, but there was that fragility in that beautiful body that had surfaced one night in Hungary, a bow caused by the heft of the loss, and that sat monstrously in a corner, refusing to go away. Chris' hands climbed up her back, holding her with a firm grip on her shoulder blades, and he sighed softly when she whispered into his ear, "Then I'll stay with you."

He grunted protestingly as a weary head shake tried to dissuade her.

"No, Claire. You need sleep. Don't…" But she shushed him quiet and, punching his side until he leaned back, Claire curled up against him, embracing him with slender, protecting arms.

"I said I'll stay with you," she said and rubbed her cheek against his hard chest, bathing in the scent of him, and surprised by her own forbidden gesture of closeness.

Luckily, Chris was as oblivious to her touch as he had always been, defeatedly relaxing under the weight of his drunk, stubborn sister on him, which automatically granted her the win in any possible argument. His arm looped around her shoulders and began to caress the exposed skin of her upper arm while his eyes turned back to the TV.

"You know you can't stay awake forever, don't you?" he mumbled teasingly after two minutes which Claire had filled with an awkward struggle to keep her eyes open, enchanted by his touch on her body and the rhythmic sound of his heart so near to her ear. Finally able to respond, she blinked angrily into the light of the screen and yawned in protest.

"Maybe, but a couple of sleepless nights are no challenge for me." She huffed against his chest as her fingers stretched over his smooth skin, pulling her hand back automatically when she noticed that she reveled a little too much in it. "Or do you think I slept at all when you were missing in Europe in 1998?"

Chris' head fell back as he laughed, so loudly that she feared for the remaining neighbors to call the cops, and Claire found herself staring at him in awe. How long had it been since she'd last heard him laugh that whole-heartedly?

"So, my memory must be failing me, because as far as I remember I found you sleeping under the stairs in the mansion of those creepy twins in Antarctica."

With a breath of offence flooding her lungs and working as an impulse, Claire was on her knees in a split-second to assault her brother with one of her tickle attacks as soon as she'd had her hands free again.

"Sleeping? I was unconscious!" She shouted reproachingly, letting her laughter join Chris', while her brother was slowly succumbing to the tickles and begging for mercy until she decided to end the torture. She made him ouch audibly with a skilled leap into his lap again before he got himself to embrace her.

"I'm so sorry, Claire," he whispered and pressed a kiss to the soft bun she had tied her hair into. "I caused you nothing but trouble."

He couldn't even start to imagine how right he was, but not the way he believed. Claire sighed audibly as her fingers began to crawl over his naked chest once more, bravely ignoring the noxious gold charm that tried to distract her with its insulting shine. No, it hadn't been easy for her, but everything would have been worth the effort and the suffering if Chris found happiness. Why wouldn't he just understand that she needed him to be happy?

"Don't say that," she replied and turned her head to him, meeting his gaze full of sorrow. "You always did your best. I know it was hard for you to take care of me and…"

"Oh, no!" He laughed and tightened his grip around her. "You are perfect, Claire," he said and somehow made her heart batter wildly. Tears shot into her eyes. "Mom and Dad would be so proud of you."

The words came hard, impacting on her conscience like a bomb and blasting away all the carefully organized thoughts. Their parents proud of her? He had no fucking idea. And how could he? Chris hadn't seen their faces distort from all the sins she had committed, from all the times she had given in to the wrong fantasies, and from how sadly she had let evil Captains take advantage of her weakness. Claire pressed her cheek against his chest, trying hard not to let him see her pitiful shakenness and holding her breath until her lungs burnt for air. It was worth every effort, though; Chris needed her to be strong for him.

"Oh Chris," she whined in shame and forced a laugh when she found the will to breathe again. "I'm not. I'm…"

"And I'm proud of you, too."

Body stiffening with discomfort, Claire tried to remain as calm and natural as possible, afraid that any hint of nerve or a wrong twitch of the lip could be the confession of how much she had wanted to hear those words from him. He was Chris Redfield, the B.O.W. slayer, one of the very first known survivors of the global tragedy caused by Umbrella, and somehow the leader of the fight against bioterrorism and a legend in the eyes of many, but right now he was just a man who tried to enjoy a movie night with his almost-28-year-old sister, letting her lie on his stomach as though she was still a toddler and telling her he was proud of her. The redhead sighed with need for him before pulling back to look into his eyes.

"I missed you," she winced and gained herself a sad smirk from her brother. "I missed this. You and I together, just hanging out like brother and sister. Watching movies, chatting. I miss things the way they were before Jill…"

There was no need to complete the sentence; to Chris, because the memory of her death was still too painfully present, as his eyes showed when they closed in a twitch of regret; to Claire, because there was nothing to add. She didn't miss how things had been before Jill had passed, but before the brunette had come into their life.

"I miss it, too."

Gently releasing herself from Chris' hug, Claire knelt on the couch and placed her elbow onto the backrest, propping her head up as an idea she had been forced to bury after letting it surface too often suddenly popped up again. It started rambling across her mind with insulting ease and she stuck the tip of her thumb between her teeth to keep the words from spilling out.

"We could move back in together."

She sucked in a breath of surprise when the very idea she had been repressing was spoken out aloud by her brother and the incredulity about it caused her to blink twice; slowly.

"I mean," he added with a shrug before shaking his head eagerly. "Sorry, forget it. That's a dumb idea."

Blood pumping rapidly through her body, she instantly grabbed Chris' hand and held it.

"I would love to live with you, Chris," she whispered in a hardly believable voice of serenity. The somewhat befuddled look on his face said that he thought there was a _but _to complete the sentence with, so she quickly wanted to clarify. "Let's do it."

A timid spasm rushed over his lip before it turned into a soft smirk in response to her words and his thumb flicked lovingly over the back of her hand.

"I don't want to inconvenience you, Claire." His eyes looked glassy when they rose to hers, and the mere picture of it made her heart flutter in pain and love.

"You don't, Chris," he said as a big smile of happiness blossomed on her face. There were little things in the world that would have made her happier than moving back in with her brother, being with him in his struggle and as a part of his daily routine again. "It would make me so happy."

He shrugged.

"What if you want to take anyone home?"

The surprise was so big that the laughter nearly burst her lungs, the idea that she could be the one who'd need some privacy — after so many years standing Jill's presence, moans and underwear— nearly kicking her over. The hilariousity of it came before the thought of Leon and his agile tongue, of course. She could lock the picture of her parents in the drawer to hide their doing from the judging glances of her mother, but Chris wasn't that simple to keep. The laugh turned into a soft smile, also in response to Chris' sarcastic frown.

"Don't worry about that, Chris, I still want to live with you."

The reply didn't seem to satisfy him especially, but he stopped discussing the topic, postponing their talk to the next morning.

_And the next day, we decided I'd move in with him, and I couldn't have been happier. Unfortunately, my prayers weren't responded to, and after a brief period of improvement, he just dropped back into his old schemes of self-destruction and drinking._

_And he pulled me down with him._

* * *

"I'm pretty sure it will be boring."

Claire was sitting on the chair next to the table, bent down, busy tying her shoes and letting her extensive cleavage shine in all its glory as she glanced over at Leon with a smirk. The blond was leaned against the wall next to the door, with his hands stuck inside the pockets of his black suit and his eyes in the cleft between the breasts of the redhead.

"Oh, I expect it to be boring." She swung to her feet and straightened the folds of her red skirt before walking into the bathroom.

After putting on the diamond earrings Leon had organized particularly for her, she launched the mirror a seductive look from behind her dark, mascara-covered lashes. That night, she was supposed to be the agent's arm candy at that award ceremony where Richard Lionel Kennedy, whose main pastime during his highschool days had been bullying his younger cousin and who was now something close to a NASA engineer, was going to get his work recognized by a bunch of people in suits. Leon was bound to attend because his mother believed that family needed to be supported no matter what, but he would serve his cousin the revenge for coming to his graduation ceremony with a blonde with big boobs. The difference between said blonde and Claire was that the latter actually knew him well, and that she wouldn't cause awkward silence whenever his family asked how they had met or if they shared any hobbies. It had been Claire's idea to join him in the first place, but the tight dress with the low cleavage and the fire-red lipstick had been chosen by Leon himself.

"That's why I don't wear underwear, so you can keep yourself busy thinking about what I'll be doing to you later."

Leon laughed darkly, side glancing at his red-haired friend like a shy teenager, as though he hadn't seen her naked already. His attention tickled the corners of her mouth, turning her lips into a wide smile. The blond pushed himself away from the wall and caught Claire's waist in his grip.

"You look amazing," he complimented her and walked her to the door. "Thank you for the favor."

"Oh, please," she said with a laugh and a headshake. "I just come for the snacks."

If she was honest, she was excited to finally meet more people behind the name Kennedy. With Chris, Leon knew practically all of her relatives, except for a further aunt on their mother's side who still sent them Christmas cards every other year, but he himself barely spoke about his origins, changing subjects whenever someone brought it up.

Claire turned to the coat rack and gasped in despair.

"Shit, the coat," she hissed in annoyance as she began to root through the layers of other wearable clothes without finding something that would match her outfit that night. "I must have left it at home."

When her displeased look turned back to Leon, he returned her glance through narrowed eyes before they began to wave across the walls of her New York apartment.

"Home?" he asked in bafflement, probably doubting her sanity. The redhead chuckled.

"Oh, yeah, I moved back in with Chris a couple of weeks ago," she clarified and tried on a beige jacket that didn't quite match the redness of the breath-stealing dress.

With wide-open eyes, Leon lowered his head into a comprehensive nod.

"I see," he said and rolled his shoulders back to smoothly let his jacket slide off his arms.

Once the garment had dropped into his hands, he swung it around and over Claire's shoulders with a wink. She chuckled. He could be so charming when he tried.

"We're still seeing how things work out," she said as she gratefully thumbed over the blond's freshly shaved chin.

A certain melancholy crawled onto Leon's face.

"You're gonna give this place up soon?" But Claire shook her head.

"I'm not sure yet. I mean, where would we meet if I did that?" She laughed. "The monthly rent is half the cost of the room in one of your favorite hotels per night."

Leon opened his mouth to counter, but his response was cut abruptly by the sound of Claire's phone, which beeped for the third time that evening. One jittery hand pulled the purse open for the other to reach into it and grab the device.

"One second," Claire pleaded with one finger lifted.

She began to type something into her phone, stopping every now and then as if the right words to say didn't come to her.

"Is everything okay?" Leon asked.

"Yeah. Yeah!" she shook her head. "It's just Chris. He's having a hard time now that he's not working, you know? He's asking me where I put the bottle of vodka."

Thumb and index finger pinched the bridge of her nose in exasperation as her eyes fell shut. Chris had very few brighter days among the rainy storm clouds his suspension had caused. Boredom and the feeling of uselessness were making it hard for him to cling to abstinence, and staying home seemed to boost his grief for Jill all over again.

"How am I going to tell him that I poured it down the drain?"

"You bitch!" Leon's naturally amused reaction to her sabotage came so surprisingly that it made her laugh, but the concern for Chris agitated her breathing. The blond must have acknowledged it, too, as he grabbed the handle and didn't move when Claire eventually dropped the phone and turned to the door.

"You should go, Claire." The tone in his voice, though disappointed, was loaded with odd sincerity and comprehension. "He needs you now."

Yes, Leon always knew what she needed, willing to make her comfortable and ease her concerns even when it meant that he had to face his family alone.

"Don't worry," she said with a shrug and laughed sadly. "I can't leave you alone with your family."

Right arm thrown around her, he patted her shoulder.

"They're not worse than a horde of zombies," he said. "I can handle them alone. Also, my pride isn't as important as your brother's well-being. I'm certainly not going to hurt myself if I have to congratulate my dumb older cousin on his success alone. But Chris…" he shook his head. "I'm seriously worried about him. You should be with your brother tonight."

Her red lips started to shake, still incredulous that he was telling her to go. She felt a little like the nineteen-year-old girl again, whom he had sent after her brother when she'd had no fucking idea where to find him. Leon had always pushed her after her brother, had always encouraged her to find and help and support him, and after nine years of friendship and several months of benefits, he still did. Hadn't she known it would have made their relationship just needlessly complicated, she would have wished to fall in love with him, because he clearly deserved better than to be dumped that night.

"Thank you," she winced, holding back the tears of excitement that lurked behind her eyelids. "I'm so sorry."

He shook his head and waved to the bathroom.

"Go change. I'll drop you at your brother's place before the ceremony."

_Moving back in with Chris had changed my life in a way I hadn't expected, to be honest. Luckily, Chris soon got back to work and everything seemed to lighten a bit. Once he was allowed to go on missions again, to keep his mind busy, it was easier for both of us. That was, until someone from Raccoon City showed up to ruin my life._

* * *

_**Thanks again for reading. Don't forget to follow the author if you like what you read and want to know how this continues, as part 2 won't be updated anymore. **_

_**All our love**_

_**TRS**_


End file.
